


Belonging

by iloveyoursmile



Series: Belonging [1]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Sports, Alternate Universe - Swimming, Angst, Blackmail, Cute, Diver Magnus, Fluff, Homophobia, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Swimmer Alec
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-23
Updated: 2017-01-23
Packaged: 2018-09-19 08:07:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 40,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9428933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iloveyoursmile/pseuds/iloveyoursmile
Summary: The water has always been the one place Alec Lightwood has belonged, but the summer between his junior and senior year, he finds another place. Not that anything is that easy, of course.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys! It’s finally here! After months of writing and editing and rewriting and re-editing I finally finished the ever elusive swim au! Thanks to the lovely as ever Marie, for betaing this monster, go follow her on tumblr at fluffymalec!! 
> 
> Now, on to a different topic. This is a Serious Sport AU™ so to help you along I have provided a key below. If you aren’t a swimmer/diver and haven’t really participated in that culture then you should really take a peek. There are technical terms plus swimmer slang that people who aren’t part of the swim community would look at and be like ‘what?’ so here is a key, because I couldn’t define it neatly in the dialogue! (If you ever have ANY questions message me on tumblr @ lolguess)
> 
> Definitions
> 
> Taper: something swimmers do before an important meet. They lessen the amount of yards/meters they swim at practice to rest up their body for a race. For example Sally normally swims about 7,000 yards a day, but at the end of taper Sally is only swimming 2,000 (ask any swimmer what their favorite part of swim season is and this is the answer).
> 
> IM: Individual Medley, event where all four strokes are swum, in the order that follows: butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle, 200 (eight lengths of a 25 yard/meter pool) IM, you swim two lengths of each stroke in that order, 400 (sixteen lengths of a 25 yard/meter pool) is four lengths, those are the two events that are in official USSA club meets. 
> 
> Flipturn: basically a somersault at the wall to turn you over so you can keep swimming without stopping and starting, only allowed in free and back. 
> 
> On the top: back in the old days swimmers used to use an analog clock to time their sets, so you’d do a 50 (two lengths of a 25 yard/meter pool) on the 45 seconds and you’d leave on 60 (the top) then the 45, then the 30 (the bottom). Now we use digital, but it’s still the top and bottom. 
> 
> Splitting a lane: only when there is two people in a lane, one person only goes down and back on the right side, the other person takes the left. When there is three+ in a lane you circle swim, you go down on the right, and back on the left side. 
> 
> Threshhold set: Ugh. you try and hold a really fast time, your fastest practice time, for an extended amount of time, with 30 seconds rest. So, 6 x 100’s @ 1:30, you’d suppose to go 1:00 hundreds (four lengths of a 25 yard/meter pool). 
> 
> Timers: Volunteers at a meet that start a stopwatch when the starter starts the race (by beeping the machine) and hit stop when the swimmer hits the wall. There is a pad in the wall that will stop the timer on the screen (scoreboard) but depending on how the swimmer hits the wall it might not stop, so the timer is there to help get an accurate time. 
> 
> Swimmers Knee: an injury that occurs with breaststrokers mainly, its caused by a certain amount of strain on the MCL. 
> 
> Now regular Disclaimers: The characters aren’t really mine (sad face), and we’re going to pretend that New York had the death penalty four years ago. Another thing that we’re pretending is real is the setup of the swim season. Creative license is a thing after all, but I also don’t like to spread false information! (Plus the people who actually read this...well thank you for coming this far) 
> 
> THIS CONCLUDES A RIDICULOUSLY LONG AUTHOR’S NOTE, BLAME THE DEFINITIONS.

Alec’s fist hit the punching bag rhythmically, trying to get lost in the repetitive motion of his fists hitting the bag. But his mind was refusing to be quiet, his father’s words repeating over and over in his mind.

It had been dinner time at the Lightwood house, which meant that everyone, Isabelle, Jace, Alec, and their parents gathered in the dining room and dinner was served at seven o’clock sharp. It had been apparent at the very beginning of the meal that Robert Lightwood was not in a good mood. He had gripped his fork and knife so hard his knuckles were white, and he’d stabbed his food as though it had personally offended him.

Alec had resigned himself to a silent dinner, when his mother, Maryse, had asked her husband how his day had gone, probably as a last-ditch effort to make conversation.

“Ugh,” Robert had grunted, jabbing a piece of steak so hard the plate clanged against the table, and the food bounced, “Those damn gay rights activists were protesting the new adoption bill again. We couldn’t even get them off the property.” Over the past year Robert had gotten more and more anti-gay, following his voters. The passing of the Marriage Equality Act had been the tipping point for both his voter pool, and Robert.

 There was a pause, “I’m sure they just want to be able to raise kids like everybody else,” Isabelle had said diplomatically. Alec had winced, why couldn’t she have just left it alone? Robert was never going to change his mind.

Predictably, Robert had snorted, “As if those fags know anything about raising a family. Worthless the lot of them.”

Alec had frozen his fork halfway to his mouth. Stomach twisting his appetite disappeared. Hastily he had excused himself and fled to the gym the moment he had eaten enough to pass as normal. At the gym he had wrapped his hands and started to practice his boxing. Boxing usually helped him get lost in his head, the repetitiveness of it almost as good as swimming.

But not tonight. His father’s words refused to leave his mind. He was a ‘fag,’ ‘worthless’ to society according to his father, and that would never change.

Suddenly Alec heard a shout and someone grabbed his shoulder, spinning him around. Alec startled and reeled back as he was spun, causing him to lose his balance and stumbled back into the punching bag.

When he regained his balance, he saw Magnus Bane standing in front of him, his arms stretched out as if to steady him. Alec felt his breath catch in his throat. Magnus Bane had been one of the best divers in Idris Academy, and not to mention insanely attractive. When Magnus had graduated a year ago Idris Men’s Swim and Dive had missed him.  

“Hey, Alec, you’re bleeding…” Magnus said, reaching forward, and pulling Alec’s wrists up. Alec blinked at Magnus, surprised he had remembered his name, before he looked down at his hands. There were red patches over his knuckles, and he could see blood on the floor. He must not have wrapped his hands correctly.

“Oh, um, I didn’t notice,” Alec muttered, flushing a deep crimson, but he didn’t pull his hands out of Magnus’.

Magnus tutted disapprovingly at him, still examining his hands. “Come on, I’ll help you get cleaned up,” Magnus said, pulling on his wrists gently and leading him to the bathroom, “It’s been awhile since I’ve seen anyone from the old team, how’s it going?” Magnus said casually.

“Oh, um, good, we have some good incoming freshman. A breaststroker, which is always a blessing,” Alec rambles, as he follows Magnus to the men’s lockers room, “and another backstroker I think.”

“Any divers?” Magnus asked, curiously.

Alec frowned, “Uh, yeah, two actually, but I think they’re still pretty new to the sport, I don’t think either of them have six dives yet.”  Magnus directed him to lean against the sink as he wetted some paper towel and started to clean his knuckles.

“Well they’ve got four years, and more divers are always handy. Now, why don’t you tell me what made you so upset you beat a punching bag without noticing you hurt yourself.”

Alec flushed even further and looked down, “It’s nothing really…”

Magnus tutted again, pausing in his ministrations, “Darling, this isn’t nothing. Granted, we haven’t seen each other in a while, but we were on a team together for two years. You can trust me.”

Alec relaxed his shoulders a little, Magnus was right. While they might not have been close, they could certainly trust one another. Magnus had never hidden who he was, Alec knew he would understand, at least to some extent, what Alec was going through. With that realization the words just started to tumble out of his mouth, “I’m gay, right,” Alec blurts out, then freezes for a split second before he plunders on without stopping to see what reaction that statement had gotten from Magnus, “and my dad...my dad is this all important senator, and he—he can’t wrap his head around that fact that LGBT+ people are just...just _people_ , who just want equality, and adoption rights, and...and that we just want to be recognized as humans…and tonight...” Alec deflates as he thinks about what his dad had said, “Tonight I was just reminded of that. Vividly.”

Alec continues ranting for a minute, telling Magnus exactly what his father had said, and how his animosity towards the gay community had grown. After he finishes Magnus is quiet for a moment, but his hands keep cleaning the blood from Alec’s skin. When the blood is finally gone Magnus twists his hands so he’s holding both of Alec’s and he looks up into Alec’s eyes, “I’m sorry. There isn’t much I can say that would make any difference. But I do know what it’s like to feel how you are feeling now, and so all I can tell you is you’ll be okay.”

Alec smiles a little, logically he had known that, but to hear it out loud, from somebody else...It’s nice. Cautiously he curls his fingers around Magnus’ hands, Magnus has really nice hands he notices idly, sturdy fingers with a few rings on them, his nails a deep shade of maroon.

“Thank you,” he murmurs, squeezing Magnus’ hands, before he drops them.

“Anytime...” Magnus looks at him appraisingly for a moment, “You want to hang out, some other time, maybe? It’s been nice seeing you, although I wish the circumstances had been a little better…” Magnus offers.

Alec bites his lip, considering, “Yeah...yeah I’d like that,” he says.

“I might need your number then…” Magnus says, smirking.

“Oh, oh, right, okay, um, here,” Alec fumbles for his phone and hands it to Magnus, with a new contact page setup.

“Awesome, text me sometime, okay?” Magnus said grinning, then he glanced at the clock on the wall, “Now, I really must be off. I’ll talk to you later, Alexander.”

Alec watches Magnus leave, and when he’s out of sight, Alec glances down at his phone. Magnus’ number is still on the screen. Quickly he pockets his phone and grabs his keys from his locker.

It’s late when he gets home, later than he normally is with his first swim practice at five thirty. When he walks in the house is, quiet, his parents are probably in their bedroom, Jace hanging with his girlfriend, Clary. Isabelle is sleeping in front of the TV, Lochte, Alec’s dog (a Newfoundland, appropriately named after the 2012 gold medalist in the 400 IM), sleeping soundly beside her.

Alec makes his way over to where Isabelle is sprawled out, sidestepping Lochte, and carefully tucks one arm under her knees, the other across her shoulders, and lifts. Isabelle stirs, and wakes up just enough to curl into him and wrap her arms around his neck. Carefully he maneuvers them up the stairs and into Isabelle’s bedroom.

Laying her gently on the bed, he starts to pull the blankets up around her. Luckily she had already changed into her pjs, she must have been waiting up for him. He knows he had left in a rush, but he hopes he didn’t worry her too much.

Just as he’s about to leave, Isabelle grabs his hand, he turns to look at her.

“What dad said tonight, it’s bullshit,” she murmurs, squeezing his hand, “Don’t believe a word of it. They are people, and they deserve a chance at a family, everyone does.”

Alec feels his stomach twist, and he turns to press a kiss on her forehead, “I know, thank you, Izzy.”

“I love you, big brother,” she whispers, her eyes starting to fall shut again.

“I love you, too, little sister,” Alec replies easily, smiling softly as his younger sister falls back asleep. He leaves Isabelle’s room and heads into his own. He slips off his shoes, and pulls his t-shirt over his head and changes into his pjs.

Before he goes to bed he makes sure everything is ready for tomorrow morning. He packs two snacks and a lunch, puts two swimsuits and a drag suit in his swim bag for both morning and afternoon practice and makes sure he has his work shirt for the animal shelter, plus workout clothes, and his books for AP Lit next semester. He does a quick check of supplies, his granola bars, and pain killers, and stuff like that. Once he’s sure he’s got everything he puts it all out in his car, double checking that his gear bag is still in the back and has his cap and goggles in it. On his way back he nudges Lochte and Lochte wakes up and follows him up the stairs and into his room. He curls up next to Alec’s bed, and Alec smiles fondly before he steps over him and falls into bed.

He pulls out his phone and unlocks it, about to set his alarm for the next morning. But instead he finds himself staring at Magnus’ contact. He had said text him...Alec shook his head. No matter what Magnus had said he was still _Magnus Bane_ , star diver, captain two years in a row, who went on to NYU to dive, which was an impressive feat in itself _without_ the possibility of going to Olympic trials _or_ having starred in the school's production of “Beauty and the Beast.” Alec was just...Alec. Yes, he was a talented swimmer, fast, consistent, and dedicated, an Olympic 2020 hopeful, but he was nowhere near _Magnus Bane_ level.

Alec set his alarm, plugged in his phone and rolled over in bed. He needed to go to sleep, it was already ten thirty, and he needed to get up in the morning. Closing his eyes, Alec forced himself to think of anything else, anything but Magnus Bane.

~~~

Alec’s alarm blared at five ten in the morning and he groaned. Reaching a hand out he swiped at his screen to shut it off. He brought both hands up and rubbed his face. Alec took a deep breath and did his customary morning count to ten. It was something he had started to do a few years ago, after waking up from dreams about Max, a way to center himself and prepare for the day. The habit had stuck, and now it was his morning ritual.

Rolling out of bed he pulled on his sweats, and a long-sleeved t-shirt. Gathering his phone and car keys, he steps over Lochte and makes his way downstairs to grab the banana he had set out.

A minute later Lochte pads over to where Alec is peeling his banana and head butts him in the leg. Alec smiles, and reaches down a hand and scratches his ears.

“You wanna go out buddy?” he asks, and Lochte wags his tail, Alec heads to the back door and lets him out, “You hurry up, I have to get to swim practice.”

Alec starts to eat his banana and lace up his shoes. He gets Lochte’s breakfast ready, and fills his water dish. Lochte had been dropped at the animal shelter three years ago, as a puppy, and Alec had taken him in. There had just been something about Lochte that had drawn him in, something about his eagerness that had reminded him of Max. (Of course it hadn’t hurt that Newfoundland’s were aquatic dogs at the heart.) His parents hadn’t been thrilled, but they hadn’t objected either, after Max his parents had checked out for a few years before throwing themselves into the political community in New York.

Letting Lochte in, he grabs his keys and phone again, scratches Lochte’s ears, and leaves.

It only takes ten minutes to get to the pool, and he changes into his swimsuit quickly, pulling on a sweatshirt to fend off the morning chill as he heads out to the pool deck with his equipment bag and a towel.

He wanders over to where Lydia Branwell, the Mayors daughter, and captain of Idris Girls Swim and Dive team, was standing in front of their lane.

“Hey,” he greeted quietly, as he pulled out his cap and goggles.

Lydia grunted, and held out her cap for him to help cap her. “Do you know what we’re doing today?”

Alec shrugged, “It’s a Monday…” is all he says as he pulls the cap over her head, and prepares to cap himself.

“Mystery Monday’s, as they say,” came a voice from behind them. Alec turned and saw Sebastian Morgenstern wandering towards them.

Alec wrinkled his nose, Sebastian was...not his favorite person to say the least, he was slimy and manipulative to the core. It also didn’t help that he was one of the fastest on the team with Alec and Lydia, meaning they all had to share a lane. (Though he was still number three in that lane consistently, to Alec and Lydia’s endless satisfaction.)

“Hm,” Lydia hummed indifferently, and turned her back on Sebastian to continue talking to Alec, while she stretched her shoulder, Alec watched her wince, and frowned in concern.

“It’s just overworked, Alec, don’t worry about it,” Lydia said rolling her eyes as she caught sight of his expression, when his expression didn’t fade she sighed, “I promise, I’ve been icing it, honestly, you can be worse than Hodge when you put your mind to it.”

Alec huffed indignantly, “I’m allowed to be worried about you, what happens if you hurt your shoulder and I have to share a lane with Sebastian?”

“Simon would move up if I was out long term, and don’t pull that face, we all know you like Simon,” Lydia told him, smirking. Simon swam a lane down from him and Lydia, he also happened to be Jace’s girlfriend, Clary’s, best friend.

It only took a few minutes before their coach, Hodge Starkweather, called them over to give them warm-up.

“Today’s a butterfly day,” he announced, which was met with a bunch of groans (bar Lydia, who actually cheered a little, though quietly, and with many glares from fellow team mates), “Oh, shush, so we’ll be starting warm-up with some freestyle, 800m swim freestyle, followed by a 400 kick, your choice, and then a 200, 100 of backstroke, and a 100 breaststroke, you got that?”

The team grumbled, and they separated to their lanes. Alec pulled off his sweatshirt, tucking it in his bag, snapped his goggles into place, and looked at the clock, “We can start on the top?” he said to Lydia, who nodded while she adjusted her goggles.

When the clock hit zero Alec dove in. The water was chilly, but refreshing. He felt his muscles relax as he started to swim, and he closed his eyes for a second, focusing on how the stroke felt, the slight pull in his arm muscles, the twisting of his hips as he did an arm stroke, the up and down of his feet as he kicked.

Swimming felt like home, the one place he truly felt like himself, safe in the water. As he did a flip turn and pushed off the wall Alec felt the cool water rush over him, and he smiled to himself, yes, this was where he wanted to be, no matter what.

~~~

The day passes uneventfully after that. Practice was hard, although Lydia enjoyed it, despite her shoulder, and, since it was a Monday, after practiced Alec went to lift weights with her for an hour before he heads to the animal shelter for his shift.

He cleans a few cages, takes a few dogs on a walk, and chats with Helen, who was working with him. After the animal shelter, he hits the library, where he studies for next semester coming up, and goes over the summer assignments. He needs to do amazing next semester in order to get the academic scholarship he would need to pay for college. To be amazing he needed to be prepared, perhaps a little…over prepared, just to give himself so leeway when long meets came around and he would have to miss a few days of school.

He goes to second practice at two, and is thankful that Sebastian doesn’t do two a-days on Mondays’ because then it’s just him and Lydia swimming, splitting the lane. It’s peaceful…well as peaceful as pushing himself to the brink can get.

When he finally goes home he grabs a book, and curls in the library to read for a while. His summer schedule is taxing, and while he knows that everything he is doing is preparing for a scholarship to do what he loves, some days he just wants to collapse and sleep for the rest of his life, and it’s only been a week.

Instead he opens his book, “1984” by George Orwell, and begins to read, a pen in his hand, and his notebook next to him.

An hour into reading his phone chimes, and he sets his book down to look at it, it’s a text from Lydia, agonizing about the AP Lit assignment. He texts her some encouragement, before remembering the other night, and how Magnus had told him to text him, that he would like to hang out.  Alec looks at his phone for a minute, not only was Magnus out of his league, but he really didn’t have time for anything...not to mention his father… But, Alec thought to himself, Magnus was….amazing, and certainly worth it….Alec felt a curl of longing in his gut before he shakes his head and reminds himself that he can crush on Magnus Bane all he wants, but the reality of the situation is that Magnus Bane would never settle for someone like Alec, even without all the obstacles.

Checking the time, he realizes that it’s almost time for dinner, and he puts his book down and stands. Alec stretches for a moment before heading out of the library and towards the dining room.

Isabelle and Jace are already there, and Alec sits in his usual spot across from his mother and next to Isabelle.

“How was your guy’s days?” he asked Jace and Isabelle while they waited for their parents to arrive.

“Oh, it was fine. Clary and I went to see a movie, some weird artsy type thing. She was fascinated, I was only mildly interested, but she promised to go to the next football game that we get tickets to, so there's that,” Jace said, grinning excitedly.

“Mine was good, I found a new book about DNA and the new advancements the scientific world has been making that I’m very excited about. Then, Meliorn and I went on a lunch date, it was...eh.”

“I thought you and Meliorn were over?” Alec asked, confused, Meliorn was a boy in Isabelle and Jace’s class, known for his… _extensive_ greenhouse, and Isabelle’s off and on boyfriend.

Isabelle shrugged, “We were, but I decided to give it one more chance, although I doubt I’m going to try much harder.”

“Clary has a friend she can set you up with,” Jace said, smirking slyly.

Alec rolled his eyes, and was about to reply that the likelihood of Simon and Isabelle getting along was low, when his parents entered. He closed his mouth and watched them move around to their seats.

When everyone was seated they all start to load their plates with the food the staff had brought out, in silence. While the silence wasn’t necessarily a bad silence, it wasn’t a good one either, and it had Alec shifting in his chair uncomfortably.

As a general rule the Lightwood dinners weren’t very loud. There was conversation, of course, but it was quick, efficient, and to the point. Since the shooting especially, his parents hadn’t been for conversation at the dinner table. It was like if they talked to their children they would remember the one that was missing. So, dinners at the Lightwood house were quiet after the first five minutes. Alec sighed and settled in.

~~~

For the next four days Alec forced himself to stick to his schedule, forced himself to focus on something other than the phone number burning a hole in his phone. He was mostly successful, he swam, worked, weight lifted, and did his summer homework. He attended silent family dinners, and hung out with Isabelle and Jace until they disappeared into the night, Isabelle with friends or Meliorn and Jace with Clary.

However, Friday, when he’s getting ready to go to the animal shelter after weight lifting he notices that he left his gear bag on the pool deck. Normally Alec would just leave it, he usually has to get moving after lifting weights to get to the animal shelter, and he’d be back to get it in four hours anyway. But today he and Lydia had gotten a head start and finished early. Shrugging, Alec decides to just go grab it, might as well pick up after himself, so the lifeguard didn’t confiscate it.

He grabs his stuff and heads back out to the pool deck. When he gets to the pool deck he stops for a second, there’s a dive practice going on, which he didn’t know happened after his team got out of the water. He’s too far away to make out any faces, but the next person up on the board looks beautiful, even from across the pool Alec can tell that he’s well built, and strong, his tan skin glistening a little with water droplets.

He walks up to board with a purpose, and bounces one, two three times before launching into the air. The man flips twice, and twists at the end, entering the water near perfectly. Though Alec has a limited knowledge of diving as a sport (all the numbers and systems for scoring are mind boggling) he knows that dive was executed beautifully.

Alec blinks a little, as if waking from a trance and crosses the pool to get his gear bag. He’s just about to leave when someone calls his name.

“Alexander!”

Turning Alec sees Magnus walking towards him, and he feels his stomach roll with excitement and anxiety in equal measure.

“Hi, Magnus,” he says, trying to look directly at Magnus, and failing, he ends up looking somewhere over Magnus’ right shoulder.

“Hi, you never texted,” Magnus states.

Alec bites his lip, unsure of how to respond, he decides the best course of action is to acknowledge it, and move on, so he just says, “No, I didn’t.”

Unfortunately, Magnus doesn’t see that as the end, as he asks, “Why not?”

“Um…” is all Alec can muster.

Magnus must realize that Alec is struggling, as his face turns gentle, and he asks, “Was it because you didn’t want to see me again?”

“What? No! No, of course not, I...I did want to see you,” Alec stuttered out, feeling his face get hot as all the blood rushes to his cheeks.

“Okay then,” Magnus says, moving closer.

Alec throws a look around the pool, and then immediately feels guilty, so he settles his eyes back on Magnus.

“Alec, would you like to go on a date with me?” Magnus asks softly.

Alec’s insides twists, the simple answer is yes. However, the more complicated answers are yes, but...my parents, yes but...when would we be able to even meet up, yes but...I can’t be gay. Alec can feel his breath pick up, and his heart start to race just thinking about it.

Magnus, who, despite only knowing Alec in passing, seems to be able to read him just as well as Jace or Izzy, and it had taken them years to figure him out. Magnus steps even closer and grips Alec’s arm just above the elbow. The touch grounds him for a second and he focuses back on Magnus, and what he is saying.

“Alec, all I’m asking is if you want to, it doesn’t have to be anything more than one date if you don’t want it to be. So, do you _want_ to go on a date with me?”

Phrased like that the answer was simple.

“Yes.”

“Okay then, will you?” Magnus asked, still just as softly.

And Alec, Alec wants to say yes, he wants to say yes a million times, and looking into Magnus’ eyes all the reasons to say no fly out of his mind. He can’t imagine himself saying anything other than what he wants to say. So, he doesn’t.

“Yeah, yeah, I will.”

Magnus smiles, genuanly happy at Alec’s acceptance, and he squeezes Alec’s arm before letting go and stepping back, “Text me tonight and we can talk about the details. And you better actually text me Alexander,” Magnus chastises, pointing an accusatory finger at Alec’s chest, “I’m not afraid to track you down.”

Alec laughs a little, the blush remaining, “I’ll text you, I promise.”

“Good, now I have to get back to practice, so I’ll talk to you later?” Magnus says, starting to back away towards the diving boards.

Alec nods, “Yeah, talk to you later.”

~~~

Alec was texting Magnus when he walked in the house after his second practice, and he was in such a good mood that instead of heading to the library to barricade himself inside with a book, he headed to the den. Jace was hanging out playing “Call of Duty” when he walked in.

“Hey man what’s up?” he asked smiling in Alec’s direction as he smashed some buttons.

Alec shrugged, “Nothing much, just got done with swim practice.” He threw himself down next to Jace.

“Sweet, fancy a round? Clary’s off hanging out with Simon again.”

“Yeah, sure,” Alec said, surprising himself. He wasn’t particularly fond of video games, but he didn’t feel like being alone right now, he was in too good of a mood to bury himself alone in the library.

“Wait, really?” Jace asked, looking over at Alec in surprise, when Alec nodded, Jace smiled and tossed him a controller.

“So, are you bitter that Clary is spending time with Simon and not you?” Alec asked.

“Nah, not really, I mean, I’d always want to spend time with her and everything, but I get wanting to hang around with other people. It’s not like I don’t want to hang out with you without Clary, you know. Although with your schedule I only ever see you at dinner.”

Alec felt guilt settle heavily in his stomach, Jace was right, ever since he started his summer schedule, which admittedly was only this past week and a half, he’d barely seen Jace, or Isabelle, and now...if everything worked out with Magnus he would be seeing them ever less…

“I’m sorry man, you know I wish I could hang out with you all the time, but I...I need the scholarship money...”

Alec saw Jace’s shoulders slump a little out of the corner if his eye, “I know, I know,” he said softly, “The whole situation is fucked up. I wish they would just understand, it would make a lot of things better.”

“Yeah, but they’re just doing what they think is right, Jace. They want the best for us, even if they can’t understand that teaching is what’s best for me, not politics. It’s the thought that counts.”

Jace paused the game, (Alec groaned he had just been about to shoot Jace’s character—just because he didn’t like video games didn’t mean he was bad at them) “But still, it’s not right what they’re doing.”

Alec shrugged, “I know, but they think it’s right.” After a second Alec nudged Jace, “Come on man, turn the game back on, I came in here to have a good time and kick your ass, not talk about depressing shit.”

“Why don’t we start over,” Jace suggested.

Alec snorted, “Yeah, no thanks, I was just about to win.”

~~~

Magnus and Alec make plans for Saturday afternoon, Magnus hadn’t told him what they were doing, just to meet him at Asser Levy Park at four o’clock.

All day Alec is an anxious mess, and he spends most of his time hiding in the library, reading. He knows both Isabelle and Jace are curious, he normally makes an effort to hang out with them on Saturday’s since he only has one practice, and no work, but he can’t today, he’s too nervous, and he knows they would see right through him.

When three rolls around Alec grabs his subway pass and heads out, he’s wearing his only tight shirt (one of the shirts that Isabelle had bought him for Christmas) paired with his favorite leather jacket, as it was a little on the chilly side for May, and normal black jeans.

As he walked out the door he heard Izzy call out from the den. Quickly he turns, he doesn’t have much time if he wants to make it in time.

“Yeah, Izzy?” he asks, poking his head in.

“I asked where you were going all dressed up?”

“Oh, nowhere, I’ll see you at dinner,” he says, and quickly leaves the room and heads out of the townhouse.

It takes forty-five minutes for him to get there, and by the time he hurries to the park Magnus is already waiting for him. He looks perfect. He’s wearing a sheer burgundy button up with gold thread weaved into it, and some necklaces dangling tantalizingly around his neck to emphasize the buttons that weren’t buttoned. His eyes were outlined in a thin line of black, with some glitter sprinkled around. He looked beautiful.

“Alexander, I’m glad you could make it,” Magnus called out, as Alec walked toward him.

“Yeah, I’m...glad I could to,” he answered, honestly.

“Come on, our final destination is not the park,” Magnus held out his hand, and Alec hesitated for a split second, no one was around, and the likelihood that someone would notice was low. Biting his lip  he reached out his hand and grasped Magnus’ hand. Feeling his heartrate pick up Alec tried to breath normally and just appreciate the feeling of Magnus’ hand in his. Magnus’ hands were calloused but warm, his wearing a few rings again, and their cool against his skin. After a second, Alec relaxes and squeezes his hand a little.

“Your hand’s calloused,” Magnus says in surprise as they walk down the street.

“Yeah…?” Alec asked, looking at Magnus weirdly.

“Sorry, it’s just that swimming you don’t really build callous, so it surprised me.”

“Oh, yeah, I lift weights, and I used to practice archery,” Alec explained.

“I see, why’d you stop archery?”

“I didn’t have time, I used to do it as a way to blow off steam, but now I box, or swim if I need to.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” Magnus said, wryly, “How are your knuckles, by the way?” Magnus asked, pulling up the hand he was holding to inspect Alec’s knuckles.

“They’re fine, healing nicely, though they sting a little when I swim.”

“Mm, I hope that goes away soon,” Magnus stops abruptly, and it takes Alec a second to realizes, accidently jerking Magnus’ hand, “And we’re here!” Magnus said, gesturing to the building they had stopped in front of.

“The aquarium?” Alec said, smiling widely, and looking around.

“Yeah, it’s always so nice inside, quiet, peaceful, rarely very busy. Plus, the fish are awesome, and pretty, what’s not to like?” Magnus replies, opening the door and letting Alec through first.

They walked in, and when the tickets had been taken care of (Magnus had bought them ahead of time), they started to head towards the conservatory.

“So, what do you swim on club team?” Magnus asked.

“The 400 IM mostly, the 1000, and the 1650. I don’t really do sprinting anymore,” Alec explained, “What about you? What are your favorite dives?”

“Oh, I like the 5337d a lot, that’s just reverse one and a half somersault with three and a half twists,” Magnus said.

Alec stared at him for a moment, “I...only sort of know what that means?”

“That’s quite alright,” Magnus laughed, “I get that it’s pretty hard to explain.”

“I guess I’ll just have to come watch one time,” Alec said.

Magnus paused, looking at Alec with a startled look on his face, “Wait, really?”

“Well, yeah. You know a lot about swimming, at least enough where when I say 400 IM you knew that was sixteen lengths of the pool, IM order. It’s only fair that I do the same for you, isn’t it?” Alec said uncertainly, had he overstepped?

“That’s sweet, Alexander, really…” Magnus said slowly, “I’d really like it if you came to my practice or to a meet. Now tell me, I’ve always wanted to know, what on earth do swimmers keep in those ginormous swim bags of yours?”

Alec laughed, “Well we keep a lot of stuff actually, I know I put all my stuff for the day in there, like extra clothes. Uh, I keep a lot of granola bars in there, so I have something to eat after a hard practice. Spare goggles and caps, flip-flops, a towel, some books. It varies from swimmer to swimmer though.”

They continued to wander around the aquarium and chat. Alec was having a fantastic time, but he couldn’t help but feel guilty. With his schedule if Magnus wanted to continue this...their time this summer would be limited, and then school would start for both of them….

Magnus stopped in front of the sea turtle exhibit, “What is it, Alec? I can tell you’re overthinking something, so what is it?”

Alec blinked in surprise, he hadn’t expected Magnus to confront him about it.He sighed, no time like the present, he thought before taking a deep breath and looking at Magnus, “Look, I...like you, and this date has been really great so far. But I have to be honest with you, I’m busy. Not only am I busy, but I have to stay focused on my swimming, and prepping for my classes next year. So, whatever this is heading towards, I want it out in the open that my time is limited, and there isn’t much I can do to change that.”

To his credit Magnus did take a second to think about it before he answered, “First, I like you too, and I agree that this date is going really well. Second, that’s okay, Alexander. I get that you’re busy, and that you have a lot to focus on for this coming year. I don’t want to get ahead of ourselves, but I do think that, while I might not be the best at it, I will try to understand you’re busy, if we continue our relationship.”

“Okay,” Alec let out a sigh of relief, “Okay,”

“Is there anything else?” Magnus asked, looking at Alec critically.

No one had ever been able to read him so quickly, “Well. I mean, you—you know about my dad, and everything?”

Magnus nodded slowly, “I know he’s a senator, and I know his viewpoints tend to lean more to the conservative side of the spectrum and they’ve been getting more radical, you mentioned it the other night.”

“Right, well, he…he doesn’t know I’m gay, as you’ve probably figured out. And I won’t be able to—to come out, to anyone, for a while, I just…don’t want you going into this expecting something I don’t think I’m ready to give you.”

Magnus squeezed his hand, and gently lifted Alec’s chin so he could look in his eyes, “Alexander, I completely understand, I get that it’s hard to face your parents, and it must be so much more pressure when the rest of the world could and would get involved. I am not expecting anything, and I am willing to wait for you to be ready, as long as you can promise you _will_ be ready.”

Alec nodded, “I promise, it’ll happen, I can’t hide forever, and I would never ask you to go back into the closet, either.”

“I know, not that you could, my sexuality is very common knowledge,” Magnus said, chuckling softly, “Now come on, there’s lots to see in here,” Magnus said, reaching out once again and wrapping his fingers around Alec’s hand.

Their conversation continued to flow, it felt so easy to talk to Magnus about everything that Alec didn’t even have to think about his answers. Over the course of the two and a half hours they had somehow wandered through the aquarium and back to the park where they had met up.

“I had a great time today,” Alec said, tentatively.

Magnus smiled at him, and took a step closer, “I did too.” Magnus reached out his hand and trailed it down Alec’s forearm to his hand, grasping his fingers.

“Would you like to do it again sometime?” Alec asked, licking his lips nervously, his eyes flickering down to Magnus’ lips. Alec watched, transfixed, as Magnus bit his lip.

“Hm, that sounds nice,” he murmurs quietly, and just as Magnus starts to lean up, Alec hears his phone ring.

Jumping about a foot in the air Alec comes back to reality, and scrambles for his phone. Had he really been about to kiss Magnus in the middle of the street?

“Alec, where are you? Dinner starts in half an hour,” Isabelle’s voice sounds over the phone.

“Shit, shit!” Alec gasps, he hadn’t even paid attention to the time he was so wrapped up in Magnus, pulling back from Magnus he hangs up on Isabelle and starts to back away, “I have to go, I have dinner with my family and I’m going to be late. I’ll talk to you later, alright?”

With that he was off and running towards the subway, hoping against hope that he could catch a train on time. His phone vibrated once he was on the subway but he was to nervous to check it.

Alec rushed straight into the dining room when he got home, unsure of what to expect. No one had ever been late to dinner without warning their parents before  

“Alexander, how kind of you to finally join us. Care to explain what was more important than being on time for dinner with your family?” his father asked, staring him down.

“I...I was out with a...friend and I lost track of time,” Alec stuttered.

“Mm, make sure it doesn’t happen again,” his father said coldly before returning to his dinner.

Alec sat in his regular chair and served himself some dinner, his hands shaking. Though Jace and Isabelle both tried to pull him into the short conversation with his parents, neither parent responded, ignoring Alec wholeheartedly for the duration of dinner.

When Alec left dinner, he breathed a sigh of relief, and prepared to go read a little in the library before bed, he pulled out his phone and finally remember he had gotten a text after he had ran away from Magnus. Pulling it out his stomach flipped at the sight of Magnus’ name.

**Magnus:** _You know, Cinderella is my least favorite fairytale._

That was all it said, Alec snorted a little and pocketed his phone, he would text Magnus later.

~~~

The week passed, and Alec and Magnus texted...a lot. The only time they didn’t text was when Alec was swimming, or Magnus was diving (and even then Magnus was still able to take a break and text at least a little bit). The conversations were light, and teasing, just a way to get to know each other.

On Saturday Alec started to get ready for his father’s annual charity gala. He was not excited. His father enjoyed throwing these types of things, showing off for his voters and gaining publicity through generous giving to whatever charity they were donating to. There was at least one every month, and the whole family was required to attend for appearances. It was boring, and full of paparazzi, Alec was normally able to avoid paparazzi pretty easily. It had long ago been established that Alec was not the interesting Lightwood. Alec was predictable, he did the same things, and had a set schedule, nothing juicy from him in the media’s eyes (oh, if only they knew, Alec often thought). If the paparazzi really wanted a scoop from the New York senator’s family (rare as it was, but it happened on slow pop culture days) they would go follow Isabelle or Jace, the ‘wild children’ of Robert Lightwood. But these nights there was no getting away from them, the cameras were everywhere.

At the gala Alec’s fingers drummed impatiently on the table. This year's gala was held the usual number of rich, stuck up snobs who wanted to prove they gave back to society. It was a Saturday night and he would rather be doing anything other than this, like maybe a second date with Magnus….Alec daydreamed as his father got up to give a speech and he thought about Magnus, and their date the week before. It had been perfect, Magnus had been wonderful, and Alec could feel a tendril of excitement at the prospect of spending more time with Magnus. He was free, and uninhibited, if he wanted something he seemed like the man that would go after it, no matter the hurdles, and Alec appreciated that.

His father finished his speech, Alec hoped no one would ask him what he thought of the speech, because he hadn’t been paying the slightest bit of attention, his thoughts wrapped in Magnus.

Suddenly someone sat down next to him and nudged his shoulder. Turning he saw Lydia, who looked stunning in a simple navy blue dress, her hair in a fancy braided pony tail.  

“Hey,” she greeted smiling at him, “Are you as bored as I am?”

Alec snorted, “Of course I am, you know I hate these things. It’s full of a bunch of stuffy people who all make annoying comments.”

“I figured, which is why I am here to entertain you,” she said, smiling.

“Entertain me with what?”

“My amazing wit, obviously, what else?”

“Ah, of course, how could I forget that. How are you feeling? Is your shoulder still bothering you?” Alec asked.

“Oh, my shoulder is fine,” she waved him off, “I’ll admit, it has been acting up recently, but I’ve told you’ve I’ve been icing it, so it’s not too bad.” Lydia said, rubbing her left shoulder absentmindedly.

“Are you sure nothing’s wrong with it?” Alec asked frowning.

Lydia shrugged, “No, nothing serious anyway. It might just be overworked; you know fly is hard on the shoulders.”

“That’s true, but if it’s starting to be a problem you might want to give it a rest.”

“I can’t, I still need that 200 fly cut for Nationals,” Lydia said.

“Yeah, but you know if you push it too much than you could have problems with your rotator cuff, and those injuries are really hard to come back from. Nationals is a month and a half away, you’ve still got JO’s and States, plus the regular meets before that.”

“Remember two years ago, and the swimmer's knee incident?” She asked, pinning him with an unimpressed looked.

“What’s that got to do with anything?” Alec asked defensively.  “That was a completely—”

“If you say it was different I’m going to kick your ass,” Lydia stated.

“But it was!” Alec defended, he turned his body more fully to face Lydia, “Butterfly is your stroke, that’s what you do, breaststroke isn’t really my stroke—”

“Alec I hate to break it to you, you’re an IMer, that means every stroke is your stroke. Not to mention your breaststroke is one of your stronger strokes, which is an advantage—”

“—Because that’s most people's weak stroke,” Alec rolled his eyes, “You’re treating me like a five-year-old.”

“You’re acting like one,” Lydia shot back, smirking.

“First,” Alec stared, pretending as though Lydia hadn’t said anything, “That was two years ago, and second, if it’s really that big of a deal you should learn from my mistake, and take it easy.”

“Damn, walked right into that one,” Lydia said, smiling good naturedly.

Looking up Alec saw his father approaching. “My dad is coming,” he mutters to Lydia, “Just in case you want to make a quick getaway.”

She laughs a little, “I think I’ll take you up on that offer—thanks again, Alec, I’ll see you Monday at morning practice?”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Alec said as Lydia left.

“Alec, I see you’re talking to the Mayor's daughter,” Alec’s father comments, as he joins him at the table.

“Oh, uh, yeah, Lydia swims with me. She’s really good, going for the Nationals cut this year in the 200 fly.”

“Is there something there? She’s quite pretty, isn’t she?” his father states, smirking at him.

Alec squirms, uncomfortably, “Uh, I don’t...know, I mean I guess…” Alec says haltingly, his thoughts going to Magnus.

“I bet she was the ‘friend’ you were out with last night, eh?” his father laughed and Alec cringed.

“Um...it’s...it’s not really like that—I mean Ly-Lydia is great and, and she’s a g-great person, but we’re not—that is to say—” Alec stammered, not making a lick of sense but unable to stop.

His father chuckles and claps him on the shoulder, “Alright, alright, you don’t want to talk about it with your old man, I get it. It was the same when my father was trying to talk to me about your mother.”

Alec frowns and glances around, his dad never acts like this unless there are reporters or important donors around. Sure enough he can see that there’s a combination reporters and wealthy looking party goers sitting not ten feet away from where he and his dad are sitting, not so subtly eavesdropping.

He sighs, and pastes on a small smile, “Thanks dad, I appreciate it.”

“Of course, now the dancing is starting, I need to ask your mom to dance, and how about you go ask Lydia for a dance, hm? Perfect in,” Robert suggest, once again slapping Alec on the shoulder.

“Oh, okay,” Alec muttered, standing to go find Lydia. He couldn’t not do it once his father looked pointedly at the cameras around the room. Spotting her a few tables over he hurries over as the music starts.

“Hey, again,” he said.

“Hey, escape your dad?” she asked, smiling brightly at him.

“Yeah, uh, I was wondering if you wanted to dance?” he offered, holding out his hand.

“Oh, sure, that’d be great.” She grabbed his offered hand, and they walked to the dance floor. Alec rested his hand on Lydia’s waist, and grabbed her hand, while she rested her hand on his shoulder. As children of politicians they had both taken extensive dance lessons, and so they moved forward easily in a slow waltz.

“I’m sorry for this, my dad really wanted me to dance with someone other than Izzy, and I would’ve rathered it be you, rather than someone who thought they had a chance…” he murmured, as he heard camera’s clicking.

Lydia smiled gently at him, “It’s alright, everyone important knows not to believe anything those people print.”

“Speaking of important people,” Alec began, as he twirled Lydia away from him, “How’s John?”

Lydia’s smile turned into an incredibly fond look when Alec mentioned John, her boyfriend, of a year and a half, they were keeping the relationship quiet until they were both out of the house. Alec liked to tease Lydia that her and John were basically modern day ‘Romeo and Juliet’ as John’s mother and Lydia’s father were on opposing ends of the political spectrum.

“John is doing really well, actually, he’s super excited for the football season to start, he thinks they have a really good chance at winning the playoffs this year.” Lydia explains.

Alec snorts, “I still can’t believe you went with a football player, of all the people…” he teases.

“Hey, John is really great, and what’s so bad about football?”

“Nothing, nothing, if you can get passed the brain damage,” Alec says, laughing, and even Lydia giggles a little. After a moment of silence in which they keep moving to the music, trying to ignore the click of the camera’s, Alec adds, “...I’m really glad you’re happy though, you deserve it.”

“Yeah...I can tell John is getting antsy though…”

“What do you mean?”

“He hates hiding from our parents, and I keep telling him, ‘wait until we get to college, it’s going to be so great’ blah, blah, blah, but I can just tell he wants to just be open.”

Alec squeezes her hand, and twirls her again, when she spins back he pulls her closer, “I’m sorry, I know what it’s like, to hide like that.”

Lydia just shrugs, “Thank you, we just have to believe everything will work out, that’s all.”

They continue to waltz until the music comes to an end, Alec’s father continues to shoot him approving looks, and by the time he and Lydia part he’s itching to leave. Snagging his suit jacket, he heads out the back into an alleyway. He draws his hands down his face. God, his father just had to push that on him. Although, now that he thinks about it, it’s good for him, his father still doesn’t suspect anything. Still, Alec feels gross, like he used Lydia, even though she was aware of the situation. His phone buzzes, and he pulls it out.

**From Magnus:** _Hey gorgeous, how’s your night going?_

Alec sighed, and his thoughts drifted to the week before. It had been perfect, Magnus had been perfect. He was everything that Alec never knew he wanted in a guy. Granted Alec had never thought he knew what he wanted in a guy, having never let himself think about it, but even he could admit that Magnus wasn’t who he’d would’ve guessed.

**Alec:** _Hey. It’s been pretty long actually :(_

Alec responded, then bit his lip, maybe he should...before he could think though, his phone vibrated.

**Magnus:** _Aw, I’m sorry to hear that, so has mine, I had a dive meet today._

**Alec:** _Oh yeah? How’d it go?_

**Magnus:** _Not that great, I had trouble nailing reverse 2.5 tuck, but not a big deal, I’ll get it next time._

**Alec:** _Uh, what one is that again? I’m sorry, I’m not really caught up with all the dive terms..._

**Magnus:** _Haha, it’s fine, I go off the board forward and then somersault a few times into the water. I’m just not getting high enough off the board, that’s all._

Taking a breath Alec braced himself, he really wanted to see Magnus again, and what better time than now to offer?

**Alec:** _I’m sure you’ll get it, you’re an amazing diver. Do you want to hang out with me tomorrow?_

Without leaving himself time to overthink Alec hits send, and takes a deep breath of the warm summer air. He doesn’t have to wait long for a response.

**Magnus:** _I would love to...when?_

**Alec:** _I open swim 2-3 on Sundays so if you wanted to meet me after, you could. Only if you want to though…_

**Magnus:** _I’d love to! At the regular pool?_

**Alec:** _Yeah, I’ll meet you there?_

**Magnus:** _Sure darling_

~~~

Arriving at the pool Sunday afternoon, Alec couldn’t help a small smile as he thought of meeting Magnus. He was a little earlier than he normally would be, but he wanted to be done by the time Magnus got there.

Snapping on his cap Alec shook out his arms and legs for a minute, before he launched himself into the pool. As always the water was cool and slippery, stretching out his arms he got to work, starting a lazy warm up freestyle.

It was forty-five minutes into his workout when he was doing an easy 100 after a fast set when he looked up to see Magnus standing at the edge of his lane. Alec blinked a little, surprised, and stood, pulling off his goggles to see Magnus better. Man, Alec thought, he’s beautiful. Magnus was wearing a purple tank top with cutoffs, and his hair was up, the tips of his hair a light purple.

“Magnus, I didn’t expect you to be here so early,” he says, wading to the wall.

Magnus shrugged and waved a hand, “Oh, you know, I was in the area anyway, and thought I’d stop by, take care of a few things, and come see you swim for a few minutes, take you on a date after. You know, simple things like that.”

“Oh...I thought I would take you on the second date…” Alec said biting his lip, pleased, but confused.

“Well, I mean, we could wait, if you’re insist—”

Alec quickly saw where he had misstepped, “Not that I don’t want to go with you right now!” he amended, “Because, I do! A lot, the first was really great, and I really want to spend more time with you. I just...I just thought I would take you on the next on…”

When Alec finally tailed off Magnus was smiling. “Well, there’s plenty of time for you to take me on another one. Would you like to go on this one?”

“Yeah, yeah, of course, let’s go,” Alec agreed, scrambling out of the pool, “Just give me a few minutes to get changed.”

Alec tried to ignore the voice in his head that told him he had another 2,000 to finish, and he should stay and finish. It was just a Sunday practice, not an official practice so he was fine.

“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” Magnus said, as Alec grabbed his stuff and started for the locker room.

Alec blushed, and Magnus wandered away while he changed. When Alec was done, and Magnus had reappeared they headed out towards Magnus’ car, since Alec had had the foresight to ask Jace to drive him this afternoon.

The drive there is quiet, they chat a little, but mostly stay quiet. When they reach their destination. He raised his eyebrows in surprise when he sees they’re at an ice skating rink.

“Ice skating?” he says, as they get out of the car.

“Yup, it should be fun, come on,” Magnus said, grasping Alec’s hand and leading him to the door, and into the rink.

“Do you have a thing for water related dates?” Alec teased, letting Magnus pull him along.

“What?” Magnus asked, looking back at him with an eyebrow quirked.

“It’s just, the first date was at an aquarium, and the now we’re on a second date at an ice skating rink, two things that revolved around water,” Alec pointed out, biting his lip to keep his smile in check.

Magnus sniffed, “Well, I just thought it’d be fun, but if you’re going to be like that—”

“—No, no, it’s fine, I was just teasing, it’s been ages since I ice skated,” Alec says, as the attendant gets their sizes and they wait at the counter, “I think the last time was...four years ago with…” Alec stops talking abruptly, the last time he had ice skated was with Izzy, Jace, and...Max, the mood drops abruptly, and Alec swallows.

“With who?” Magnus asked curiously, grabbing the skates, and handing Alec his pair.

“Uh, my siblings,” Alec answered quickly, sitting down and starting to lace up his skates.

“Mm, that must have been fun. The last time I skated was last year, at Christmas with Catarina, Ragnor, and Raphael. Ragnor and Raphael were complete twits about it to, neither wanted to do it, but somehow Cat and I managed to drag them out of the dorms. It turns out Raphael, as graceful a dancer as he may be, cannot skate, which...I do not understand.”

Alec laughed, relieved that Magnus had let his moment pass without comment. Magnus continued to chatter on about his friends, as they started on the ice. Magnus as it turned out, was very good at ice skating, which if Alec had really thought about, wouldn’t have been such a surprise, Magnus was always graceful and poised on the board before a jump, it would make sense that he was the same on the ice.

Alec laughed as Magnus twirled, “Where did you learn to do that?”

“I took skating lessons when I was younger, I remember a few things.” Magnus explained as he circled back to Alec and took his hand.

“Why’d you want to come ice skating in the middle of summer?”

“Well, it’s warm out there, and cool in here, plus, it’s pretty empty,” Magnus explained, gesturing to the almost deserted ice rink. “So, Alec, the get to know you quest continues.”

“It’s a quest now?” Alec asked, a smirk twisting at the corners of his mouth.

“It most certainly is, don’t question it. Now, tell me, what is your greatest fear?” Magnus asked, as he wiggled his eyebrows excessively.

Alec is a little taken aback at this turn of events, and has to take a moment to gather his thoughts, which Magnus must take it as hesitation because he quickly reassures Alec.

“Not your deepest fear, just...you know regular things, we can explore greatest’s fears on the third date,” he jokes.

Alec smiles, “Well, I really dislike spiders, um,” Alec chuckles a little bit, before admitting, “And, while I know it’s completely irrational, I really do not like umbrellas. I have no idea why, my mom said something about be being hit with an umbrella by accident when I was little, but I don’t remember it.”

Magnus laughs, “No spiders, and no umbrellas, duly noted.”

“What about you?” Alec asked, swinging their hands back and forth as they skated around.

“Mm, I don’t know, snails and frogs, they’re slimy and gross, I guess.”

“Fair enough, Jace is afraid of ducks,” Alec said, laughing a little.

“Really? I thought he was the tough guy? I mean, that’s the vibe I got from the way you described him on our first date, plus what I remember him from Idris.”

“Oh, he tries to be, but for whatever reason, he has never liked ducks. It’s hilarious,” Alec explains.

Magnus nods, “So, moving on from Jace’s weird fear of ducks, to something completely unrelated, why do you swim?”

“Wow, hitting with the deep questions today,” Alec said, but he waves Magnus off as he opens his mouth to apologize, “No, it’s fine, I don’t mind answering.”

Alec takes a second to think about it, “I swim because...it’s just me, and the water. The water is so...loud around me, that it drowns out all the sound. Swimming is the only thing that really...brings me peace, in a way. It...calms me, gives me a second to relax and think with a level head. The water is soothing, and when I swim I’m...It’s like when someone goes home, and they just...completely relax and decompress, that’s like what the water is for me. I don’t know if that makes any sense.”

“No, no it makes sense, it’s like a sense of belonging almost?” Magnus asked, smiling at Alec.

“Oh…yeah, that…that makes sense,” Alec says after a moment, and then asks, “Why diving?”

“Some similar reasons as you, it’s a place where I belong, and that’s…undeniable. But more than that, diving is…a performance, and I _love_ to perform,” Magnus laughed, but then paused for a minute, “Also...it’s wild, it’s an adrenaline rush. You’re freefalling, but the difference is it’s a free fall with purpose and without risks.”

Alec smiled, and Magnus quickly changed the subject, asking Alec about his first meet, where he recounted the hilarious story of his first IM.

Their date lasted well into the evening, and, as much as Alec tried to keep track of time this time around, found himself running the risk of being late to dinner again.

“I’m going to be late again,” he said to Magnus as checked his watch. After they had ice skated for an hour or two, they had gotten coffee and wandered for a little bit, and now they were standing on a small park, under a maple tree.

“Late to what?” Magnus asked, swinging their intertwined hands.

“Dinner, with my family, it’s mandatory,” Alec explained, rolling his eyes, “I was late last time, and my dad was not happy about it...although he thought I had been with—” Alec was quick to cut himself off when he realized he was about to tell Magnus about Lydia, “Anyway, I can’t be late again, so...I’ll text you tonight?”

Alec made to pull away, about to head in the direction of the subway, but Magnus grabbed his wrist and pull him back to him.

“Oh, no, not so fast mister,” he said, smirking up at Alec, “I told you Cinderella was my least favorite fairytale, and I meant it.” Magnus hands slipped up Alec’s arms and around his neck.

Alec swallowed, glancing around, but they were tucked into a small corner of a deserted park, so he let his eyes flit down to Magnus’ perfect looking lips, and hesitantly lowered his head until he could feel Magnus’ breath against his lips.

“Alexander...don’t tease,” Magnus breathed, looking at Alec through his eyelashes. Alec didn’t respond, instead he lowered his head completely and captured Magnus’ lips with his own.

There were no words to describe it, Alec thought absently as Magnus’ mouth moved against his own, and his arms circled Magnus’ waist. The closest thing he could equate it to was the feeling of being in the water...It felt like...like he _belonged_ , and he never wanted to leave. He pulled Magnus more firmly into him, and tilted his head for a better angle. The wet slide of Magnus’ mouth was intoxicating, his lips were smooth, and Alec could taste the cherry flavor Chapstick on his lips as he drew his tongue across his bottom lip. Magnus opened his mouth and Alec slid his tongue in to meet Magnus’. Magnus tasted like the sweet coffee he had just drank and something…something uniquely Magnus that Alec couldn’t put his finger on.

Magnus nipped at his bottom lip as he drew away, and Alec smiled at him.

“That was…” he started, then he realized he didn’t know how to finish that sentence.

But Magnus seemed to be feeling the same, because all he said was, “I know...we should really do it again…”

Alec breathed out a laugh, but complied, leaning back in to kiss Magnus, their lips molding together. Alec let the kiss go on, until it was passed time for him to leave.

“I’ll see you later, Magnus…” he murmured as he stepped back, his hands lingering on Magnus’ hips before he pulled away completely and started to back up towards the subway.

“I’ll text you, Alexander, have a good night.”

Alec was just barely on time for dinner, by the time he got in everyone was just sitting down.

“Alec, late again. I hope this isn’t becoming a pattern,” his father comments as Alec hastily takes a seat.

“Uh, no, I just...uh, lost track of time…”

“Seems to be happening a lot lately. Let’s try not to let it happen again.”

Alec didn’t say anything, instead he reached for the food, and listened to Jace talk about his day.

~~~~

Alec had to pull himself out of pool Monday morning by sheer force of will. Saying that swim practice had been hard would be the understatement of the century. A threshold set, plus a ton of 25’s kick underwater was not on his ideal list for a Monday morning workout. Still, he had to be pleased, he had improved his threshold time by a second. After Hodge gave them their announcements, and reminders for meets, Alec set off to hopefully track down a spare granola bar, but his hopes were not high. In fact, Alec was pretty sure that he had forgotten to grab new granola bars last week, and had eaten his last one Friday morning. Still, when he reached his swim bag he wrapped himself in a towel and started to dig.

Surprisingly Alec didn’t have to dig very far to find a granola bar…only when he pulled it out he noticed it wasn’t the kind he would normally buy; in fact, he had never seen this brand before. Who had put new granola bars in his bag? Isabelle might have, but she knew what kind he bought, and Jace did too…That left only one person. Pulling out his phone carefully he opens his messages to Magnus.

**From Alec:** _Hey, did you put granola bars in my bag?_

**From Magnus:** _And if I did…?_

**From Alec _:_** _I would say you’re amazing and so are the granola bars._

**From Magnus:** _Good, I’m glad you like them :)_

Alec smiled a little, and went to get dressed, a nice bubble of happiness in his stomach. After he and Lydia lifted weights, Alec went to stop by dive practice. After all, he had to thank Magnus properly for the granola bars, and what better way than to ask him on a date?

“Alexander, what a nice surprise,” Magnus said, as Alec approached the group of divers.

"Hey, Magnus, can I have a minute?” He asked, his nerves kicking in.

“Sure, darling,” Magnus said, moving away from the group of divers, and closer to Alec, “What is it?”

“Well, first, I wanted to tell you in person, thank you for the granola bars, they were great, and also…” Alec took a breath, even though he ninety percent sure Magnus would say yes, there was still that small grain of doubt lingering in his brain, “I wanted to know if you were free Wednesday?”

Magnus frowned, his eyebrows crinkling, “No, I don’t think I am, what about Tuesday?”

“Yeah, tomorrow is great.” Alec agreed easily.

A wide smile spread across Magnus’ face, “Well, then it’s a date, what time did you have in mind?” 

“Um, six? We could get dinner before?”

“Six is good, but before, what?”

Alec bit his lip, his cheeks turning pink, “It’s...it’s a surprise.”

“Ah, I see, well, sure.”

“I’ll pick you up?” Alec offers.

“That’d be lovely, Alexander, I’ll text you my address. See you then.”

“Bye, Magnus,” Alec calls. He stays, and watches Magnus’ next dive before he hurries to the animal shelter, five minutes later than he normally is.

“Well, well, well, look who’s breaking the rules,” he hears Maia, one of his fellow volunteers call from the back room, “Late for the first time ever.”

Alec smiles, “Sorry, I got held up in traffic.”

“Sure, I’ll believe you, just this once. Now, Sparky needs a cage cleaning, and I did it last time, so it’s your turn,” Maia says, as she comes to the front of the building.

Alec wrinkles his nose, “For a dog so sweet, he really goes to town on that cage.”

            ~~~

When Alec gets home from two-a-days he’s expecting to just curl up in the library and agonize over the AP Lit assignment, but instead when he gets home he finds both his parents, and his father's campaign manager, Eliza, waiting in the den, which is just off the entryway.

“Alec, good, you’re home. Come in, we need to have a word,” his mother calls, and Alec feels his stomach drop.

“Um, okay...what about?” he asked, inching into the room, and staying close to the doorway.

“Lydia,” Eliza says, and holds out a magazine, clearly expecting Alec to come take it.

Alec does, and when he looks at the bottom right corner he sees a picture of him and Lydia dancing on the night of the charity gala.

“We didn’t get a chance to talk to you about it the other night, this ran Monday, and we wanted to see what was going on and what you wanted to do about it. Lydia is the daughter of the Mayor, and while her father and your father have a few differing viewpoints, it will be easy to spin it so it doesn’t hurt anyone. Who knows, it could even be a benefit,” Eliza rattles off. “Of course, there is the option of not confirming your relationship, which...is a little less ideal, but we could do it if that’s what you wanted, I know out of all your siblings you like to stay out of the spotlight.”

Alec blinked, a little thrown by all this information being thrown at him, “Me and Lydia...what are you talking about?”

“Oh, Alec, come on. You’ve been late, not to mention that night at the charity gala. We know you two are dating,” his mother said, “There’s nothing to worry about, Lydia is a great choice, really, your father and I couldn’t be happier.”

“Lydia and I...we’re just friends…”

“Come on, Alec, nobody believes that,” his father rolls his eyes, “Regardless, how do you want to go about this?”

“I...Lydia and I aren’t dating!” Alec almost shouts, agitation bubbling up inside him.

Eliza rolled her eyes, “At this point it doesn’t matter, we can wait a week or two before confirming, let you admit you’re dating Lydia and letting the media speculate. As the saying goes ‘all publicity is good publicity.’” Eliza grabs her briefcase and turns to Robert, “Anyway, call me tomorrow, Robert, we have a few things to go over.”

“I’ll walk you out,” Maryse offers, and they both leave the room.

“You know, Alec, both your mother and I know what’s going on, you don’t have to hide it from us, it’s not like we disapprove. Lydia’s a nice girl.”

Alec resisted the urge to snort, if only he knew, but Alec knew he should capitalize on the moment, so he looked at his father and asked, “Is it alright if I miss dinner Tuesday?”

“Why?” his father asked.

Alec bit his lip, his father already thought him and Lydia were dating, he might as well take advantage of the fact that he didn’t have to lie… “I have a date.”

His father smirked, “Ah, well, in that case, sure, tell Ms. Branwell I said hello.”

“I will…” Alec said, “I’m going to go study now, I’ll see you at dinner.”

~~~

Tuesday passed in a bit of a blur, all Alec could think about was seeing Magnus that night, and not even Sparky’s daily cage cleaning could distract him. It wasn’t going unnoticed either, Maia had asked him what was going on at the animal shelter, and so had Lydia at both swim practices, when Alec had lost count during a 500 and a 400.

When second swim ended Alec took a quick shower and pulled on the clothes he had picked out, black jeans and a dark green button up, rolling the sleeve and leaving a few buttons unbuttoned, just like Isabelle had always told him. Putting on some deodorant, and just a spray of cologne, Alec tried to tame his hair, finally he gave up and grabbed the gel he had swiped from Jace. Thank goodness he had paid attention when Isabelle helped him get ready for press events, as he was somewhat successful in recreating her hand movements, leaving him with a passable hairstyle.

He packed his bag and headed toward the exit towards the parking lot, as he pulled out his phone and started to input Magnus’ address.

“Alec, hey, Alec,” he heard someone call from behind him.

Turning, he saw Lydia hurrying towards him, “Hey Lydia, what’s up, I was just about to go.”

“Yeah, I need to talk to you for a minute, it’s about...the newspapers.”

“Oh,” Alec felt his heart constrict a little bit, “Um, yeah, we should talk about that. Look, I really can’t right now? I have...a thing that I need to get to, and I don’t want to be late. Can we do this some other time?”

“Sure, I understand, I’ll text you about it,” Lydia said.

“Awesome, now I really gotta go, I’ll see you tomorrow, Lydia,” and with that Alec hurried out to his car.  

The drive to Magnus’ house was easy, and before Alec knew it he was standing in front of Magnus’ front door and ringing the bell.

The door swung open a minute later to reveal Magnus, looking stunning in a simple black shirt at first glance but when it caught the light it...shimmered, almost purple. Alec wasn’t really sure, but Magnus had paired the black and purple shirt with grey, tight pants. Looking up at his face Alec was immediately drawn to Magnus’ eyes, the green in them somehow emphasized by the purple eyeshadow he wore that matched his shirt.

“Magnus...hi, you look...stunning,” Alec said, finally settling on an accurate word to describe the man in front of him.

“Thank you, darling, as do you,” Magnus replied, stepping outside and following Alec to the car, where Alec opened his door for him.

“Thanks, so. What do you have planned for us this evening?” Magnus asked when Alec got in on the other side, quirking an eyebrow

“Well, there’s a family run retro diner, that I thought would be good and, as Isabelle put it, would ‘fit the theme for the evening’ whatever that means. I haven’t been there in a while, but I do remember they had really good burgers.”

Magnus looked skeptical, “And what about after, because I remember very clearly you said dinner was before something, so what is it that ‘fits the theme’ of a retro diner, Alexander?”

“That’s...still a surprise,” Alec mumbled, blushing and avoiding Magnus’ eye. Spotting the place, he wanted to park Alec pulled into the parking structure and, for once in his life, he was able to find the perfect spot to park, close to both activities, and relatively low stress.  

“Come on, the diner is just up the street,” he says as he and Magnus exit the car and start towards the street. On the walk to the diner Alec can’t shake the feeling that someone is watching him, but whenever he looks around he doesn’t see anyone. Trying to shake it off as pointless paranoia after the incident with Lydia he focuses on what Magnus is saying as they get a table at the diner.

Dinner’s...fantastic, Magnus and Alec don’t stop talking to each other the entire meal, and when the check comes Alec is able to snatch it before Magnus, and he smirks triumphantly.

“You paid the last two times, so this date is all on me, no arguments,” Alec says, handing the waiter his debit card and laughing at Magnus’ pout which turned into a smile. Alec had a hard time telling, but it looked like he was even blushing.

“How gentlemanly of you, Alexander. Fine, but next one is on me.” Magnus conceded.

They stood, and made their way out of the restaurant, Magnus had grabbed Alec’s hand, and they were walking to their next destination in silence, but it was a...companionable type silence to Alec. He had never experienced anything like it except with his siblings and Lydia. Whenever he talked to someone there was always this pressure to move the conversation forward, to be interesting, but with Magnus...Alec didn’t feel that pressure, he was completely comfortable.

Finally, when they reached their destination Alec pulled Magnus to a stop. Magnus looked around, and when he saw what they were standing in front of his face broke into a wide smile.

“Bowling?” He laughed, gripping Alec’s hand tighter and turning to face Alec.

Alec bit his lip as he smiled, “Yeah, it’s a classic,” he said and started to back towards the door pulling Magnus along, “And, you don’t know this about me, but I am an _excellent_ bowler.”

“Oh, really?” Magnus asked skeptically, a grin tugging at his mouth.

“Mmhm, in fact, if I hadn’t liked swimming so much then I would’ve joined the bowling team in high school.”

“Is that a challenge I hear from you?” Magnus asked, as they entered the bowling alley and headed to the counter.

“Nope, it would be unfair to you,” Alec teased, as he paid the man and they gave him their shoe sizes. The bowling alley was deserted except for the employees, and they were able to snag the last lane, tucked safely away.

“Unfair to me? You’re a trash talker, aren’t you? Well, in that case let’s make it interesting.”

“Okay...alright, I can get behind that, how are we ‘making it interesting?’” Alec asked.

Magnus smirked, and dropped his shoes on the bench next to their lane, snaking his fingers through Alec’s belt loops, “Well, if I win—which let’s be honest is a very real possibility—” Magnus raised a hand to stop Alec from talking, “Then you have to come with me to this Indonesian restaurant and let me order for you.”

“And if I win?” Alec questioned, resting his arms on Magnus’ shoulders.

“I don’t know, what do you want me to try?”

Alec thought for a minute, before a smirk spread across his face, “If I win then you have to come sing a karaoke song of my choosing at this karaoke place I know.”  

“Ohh, you’re evil, hiding under a ‘boy next door’ mask,” Magnus laughed, “Fine, deals on, if I win you have to come eat spicy food, and if you win I have to sing karaoke for you, in public.”

“Awesome, better seal it with a kiss so the deals legit and everything,” Alec murmured, leaning down and brushing a kiss across Magnus’ lips.

He pulled away before Magnus could chase him, and smiled, grabbing his shoes from the seat and starting to put his shoes on. Magnus sat down next to him and started to lace up his shoes.

“So, the other night you mentioned that you were aiming for a scholarship to go to NYU next year.”

Alec nodded, standing up to go typed in his and Magnus’ names to the scoreboard, “Yeah, that’s my dream school.”

Magnus was up first so he paused his questioning and grabbed his ball (naturally is was a bright shade of orange, Alec’s was a dark navy in comparison), he stepped up, took a breath to center himself and swung his arm. The ball hurtled down the lane and struck the pins, knocking down eight out of the ten, the eighth wobbled dangerously before settling. Magnus groaned, but still, he could swing a spare, and he wandered over to the ball dispenser, smirking at Alec.

“Okay, I'll admit that was a good one,” Alec said raising his hands in a sign of surrender.

Magnus just smirked at Alec again and grabbed his ball again, approaching the lane, he took a breath and swung his arm again. The ball took out the two remaining pins. Magnus turned to Alec.

“See, I told you. Now to continue in my nosey line of questioning, why do you need that scholarship? If you don’t want to answer that’s fine, but I was just curious...”

Alec’s answering smile was sad, “Nah, it’s fine, it isn’t something that’s shameful. But it is a bit of a long story, so we can talk about it later.”  

“Okay,” Magnus agreed easily, “Well, in that case, Alexander, get your bowl on. I recall someone talking a big game, so. Prove it.”

Alec chuckled, blushing a little and pressing a quick kiss to Magnus’ cheek and stepping up. He swung his ball, and it sped down, taking out all ten pins in a strike.

He turned back to Magnus, pointing a finger at him, “You might be good, but if the first two frames are anything to go by, I just might win.”

“Beginners luck, my dear,” Magnus dismissed.

“Mhmm, still, I deserve a kiss, I think,” Alec said, throwing caution to the wind and stepping right into Magnus’ space.

“Someone is forward tonight, I have to admit Alexander, I didn’t think you had it in you.”

Alec blushed, “It comes and goes. It’s been a good day, so…”

“I’m certainly not complaining, Alexander, I quite like you like this.”

“Well then,” Alec muttered and he bent his head down and kissed Magnus. This kiss didn’t end quite as soon as the last one, Alec found himself unable to move away as Magnus started to suck on his bottom lip.

The rest of the games go on in a similar manner, Alec does eventually win, although it’s a close game, and they decide to stay and play a few more games. By the time they decide to call it quits it’s almost ten o’clock.

Alec and Magnus head back to the car after they finish, holding hands and laughing about the man that had come in a little later and had been bowling next to them. It was clear he took bowling very seriously, and didn’t appreciate Alec and Magnus goofing off next to him.

The drive back to Magnus’ passes with Magnus singing along to the radio and Alec laughing and trying to pay more attention to the road than he pays attention to Magnus, which was harder than it sounded. When they reach Magnus’s apartment building, Alec pulls into the buildings parking structure and parks, intending to walk Magnus to his apartment door, but Magnus meets him at the front of the car.

“I…sort of don’t want tonight to end just yet,” Magnus admits as he leans against the car, “Can we just talk for a few minutes?”

Alec bites his lip, he knows he should get home, he has practice tomorrow and it’s late already…but at the same time he feels the same as Magnus, “Yeah, sure,” he answers, joining Magnus in leaning against the car, “What do you want to talk about?”

“What about what I asked earlier, about the scholarship?”

Alec nodded slowly, “Okay, so you know I want to be a teacher, right?” Alec waited for Magnus’ nod before he continued, “Well my parents always had this vision for me, and for all of my other siblings, but me especially because I’m the oldest. They always wanted me to be a lawyer, and then follow in my father’s footsteps and become a politician. But I don’t…I don’t mind talking to people, and negotiating, but politics is too…cloaked. I’m not really a person that likes to beat around the bush, and I don’t really watch what I say very carefully. Basically, I’m not a slick talker and I’ve never wanted to be. So, when I told my parents this…they were not happy, and they were even less happy when I told them I wanted to be a teacher, because they thought that being a teacher was somehow…beneath me, not to mention the paycheck. They ended up giving me an ultimatum last fall. I either go to college and get a degree in law like planned, and my parents will pay for it, or I can go and do what I want on my own dime.”

When Alec stops talking he can feel Magnus’ eyes on him, and he ducks his head, a blush heating his cheeks. It takes him a minute to start up again, and Magnus must sense this because he doesn’t talk, just keeps looking at Alec.

“So. The only way for me to get enough money to go to college is scholarships based on merit. Swimmers don’t get athletic scholarships because the sport doesn’t bring in money like football. But I can get an academic scholarship because they want me to swim for them if my grades are good enough…” Sensing Magnus’ confusion, Alec sighs, “It’s a little hard to explain. They won’t give me an athletic scholarship, because they save those for sports that bring in money, like football, but they still want me to come swim for them. So, they look at my academics, and if my grades and tests scores are good enough, they’ll offer me an academic scholarship with a stipulation that I have to swim all four years and maintain a certain GPA.

“Anyway, I won’t be eligible for any student loans because of my parents, so I really have to buckle down and get really good grades, and do really well in swimming this year to attract scouts…I would take more hours at the animal shelter, to try and save up more, but I wouldn’t have enough time, so I settle for doing everything I can that looks impressive on an application.”

“I’m…really sorry, Alexander, your parents should support you in whatever you want to do,” Magnus says, reaching a hand out and resting it on Alec’s arm.

Shrugging Alec looks away, “They’re trying to in their own way, I guess. They think I should go into law because it’s a solid paycheck with more zeros than a teacher’s salary…but I don’t’ really have an interest in law so, this is what I’m gonna do instead.”

“You’re following you dreams, Alec, you should be proud of that, and I’m sure you’ll get that scholarship, people would be blind to not see how smart and amazing you are.”

“Thanks, Magnus, now. Enough about me. What are you studying?” Alec asks, nudging Magnus’ shoulder.

“I’m double majoring actually, in fashion and business,” Magnus said, smiling at Alec, “So it’s probably going to be really stressful, but it’ll defiantly be worth it.”

“What are you planning on doing with it?”

“I’m going to start a fashion company to rival Gucci, and all the big names in fashion,” Magnus said, smiling widely.

Alec returned his smile, “I can see that, what are you planning on designing?”

“Now, now, I can’t give you all my secrets, can I?” Magnus laughed, “I’m joking, but some other time, when I have my sketch book on me.”

“Okay, I can’t wait to see how amazing they are.”

Magnus didn’t say anything, he just smiled and they continued to talk for the better part of the hour. When Alec saw what time it was though he knew he absolutely had to go, so he started to say goodbye to Magnus.  

“I’ve really got to go now, Magnus…but I had a great time tonight, and we should make plans for that karaoke thing.”

“I guess, if it’s really necessary, we can make plans for it,” Magnus laughed.

“Good, I’ll text you tomorrow,” Alec promised and pulled Magnus close so he could kiss goodbye.

The kiss took longer than Alec had originally planned his goodbye kiss to be, but he wasn’t complaining as Magnus’ tongue swiped his bottom lip and he opened his mouth. Finally, he managed to pull away from Magnus, just as he pulls away he see’s a flash of light, glancing over he sees a car headlights start, and he shakes his head, the whole debacle with his parents has obviously put him more on edge than he was willing to admit. He kisses Magnus one more time before stepping away and getting in his car.

When Alec gets home he’s acutely aware of the fact that it’s close to midnight, four hours after he told his parents he might be home, not that they noticed as Alec hadn’t gotten any texts from them. Still, he tried to be quiet as he walked into the house. But, he, apparently, is terrible at sneaking in. It becomes more obvious when his shoulder collides with a doorframe, causing him to stumble into a side table and nearly knock the decorative vase his parents had got as a gift from some congressman. Swearing he manages to catch it before if hits the floor.

Shaking his head in defeat Alec set the vase back where it was supposed to be and headed up the stairs to his bedroom.

“Having a good time, big brother?”

Alec must have jumped a foot in the air, “Shit! Izzy, don’t do that, I almost fell down the stairs!” he whisper-yelled at his sister, where she was leaning against her door frame, “What are you doing?”

She shrugged, and walked to meet him at the top of the stairs, “Just waiting for you to get home. How was your date?”

“Date, what date?” he asked, his eyes looking anywhere but her face. If there was one person he couldn’t hide things from, it was Isabelle Lightwood, at least when asked directly.

“Mhm, yeah, even if mom and dad hadn’t spilled the beans about your… _date_ with Lydia, that still wouldn’t have worked.”

“Oh. Well, it was good, you know, uh, Ly-Lydia was great, we had a…a good time,” Alec fumbled.

“Alec…come on, you know you can tell me anything,” Isabelle murmured.

Alec looked at the floor, “I know, Izzy, but…I really need to go to bed, so…I’ll see you tomorrow. I love you.”

“I love you, too, big brother.”

~~~

The next morning starts off normal, Alec gets up, and goes to swim practice, although he’s more of in a daze than anything, having gone to bed so late was not a good idea, and Alec can literally feel the effects of three and a half less hours of sleep. So he isn’t really paying attention until Lydia meets him to go work out.

“Hey, boyfriend, what’s going on?” she teases, and Alec just looks at her like she’s gone nuts.

“What?”

“You haven’t seen it?” Lydia asks, as she pulls out her phone and opens Safari.

“No, what haven’t I seen?”

Lydia holds out her phone to him, and he grabs it, there’s a picture of him and Lydia dancing at the charity gala, and the caption under it, “The Love Story of the Ages? Senator Lightwood encourages eldest son to go dance with his girlfriend at the charity gala for school supplies in underprivileged schools,” Alec freezes for half a second.

“What?” he repeats, his heart rate picking up as his mind flies to a million different thoughts.

“Your father’s PR rep or whatever contacted my dad’s PR rep and they agreed to confirm the story apparently.”

“I…I told them to leave it…Lydia, I am so sorry, I didn’t mean to get you involved in this, I mean, I did let my dad believe I was going on a date with you last night, but I didn’t think he would do something like this…How’s John? He knows it’s not true, right?”

“Alec, calm down, everything is fine, John knows that so it’s okay. I know it helps take the pressure off in some ways, so I’m fine with just letting it trickle out if you are,” Lydia was quick to reassure him.

“Oh, I…Thank you Lydia, I guess that’s okay then.”

“Alright, now that that’s settled, let’s go workout.”

Alec agreed, and they headed off together. But the whole day Alec can’t stop thinking about the article, and why his father would go against his wishes, and he couldn’t stop thinking about Magnus, if he’d seen it yet, because Alec knew that Magnus would see it, it was inevitable. Which was why he wasn’t surprised when he got out of second swim and there was a text from Magnus asking if they could talk.

Alec texted back asking him to lunch the next day. When the plans were set, Alec went home, and headed straight for his father’s office.

Knocking he waited for a second before his dad call him in.

“Ah, Alec, what can I do for you? I have to leave soon for an event,” his father said when he glanced up and saw it was Alec.

“I was just wondering why there’s an article about Lydia and I’s relationship in the gossip magazines when I told you I didn’t want anything said about it.”

“Oh, that, well, Eliza and I talked and contacted Mayor Branwell and we all thought that it would be beneficial, you know it’s a good idea to have ally’s like Mayor Branwell. Really, it’s not that big of a deal, it would’ve come up anyway, and better in a controlled situation than in some big ‘scandal,’” his father explained, waving a hand dismissively, which only made Alec angrier.

“Yeah that’s great, except you didn’t ask either of the people involved. To put that in perspective for you that would be like if I leaked that you cheated on mom and then just waved it off.” Alec snapped back.

His father looked up in surprise, “This is completely different Alec. I would watch how you talked to me, young man. What’s done is done, and you can’t do anything about it. You and Lydia can continue your relationship in relative peace.”

“Uh-huh, that’d be fantastic if we were actually _in_ a romantic relationship, but we’re not, dad, so basically you just screwed your little political play over.”

“Son, you went on a date—”

“No, we didn’t, we hung out, then decided that it wasn’t for us,” Alec snapped, which technically wasn’t a lie, they had…two years ago.

His father’s face only paled a little, “It doesn’t matter, the media doesn’t require more than a confirmation and then they take everything at face value. We can just keep dropping hints, and everything will be fine.”

Alec stared at his father in shock for a second, “No, we won’t do that. You are going to be silent about our relationship. If you say another word I’ll deny the entire thing, and tell them you made it up for publicity,” Alec threatened, “Just…stay out of it dad.”

Alec turned and headed upstairs, when he passed by Isabelle’s room on the way to his he paused, it’d be so nice to just talk to her about this…it had been years since he really talked to Isabelle and he missed confiding in his sister. But when he realized he was gay he had shut everything down, wanting to contain his secret, and before Magnus he had done a good job.

As he stood staring at Isabelle’s door it opened and his sister stepped out, clearly getting ready to go to a friends or something, but when she saw Alec staring at her she paused.

“Alec? Are you okay, do you need something?” she asked, concern coloring her voice.

“I just…wanted to talk to you, but if you’re busy, that’s fine, we can do it another time…” he said, surprising himself even.

“Oh, no, I was just going to go out with friends. I can cancel, though, you’re more important,” she said, already on her phone no doubt texting whoever it was that she was going to be late, “Come on, let’s sit in my room,” she gestured him into her room. Alec followed and sat gingerly on her bed. “So, what’s up, big brother?”

“Um…I’m…I’m gay.” He stated, looking at the floor, “And dad…dad leaked a story about how Lydia and I are together, even though I’m actually dating somebody else, and now the guy I’ve been seeing saw it and…and I don’t know how to explain that my dad is just an asshole.”

“Oh, Alec…First and foremost, I’m so proud of you,” Isabelle said, reaching out and grabbing Alec’s hand, “And secondly, dad is an idiot, but if the boy you’re seeing doesn’t understand then he’s an idiot too, and he doesn’t deserve you. So, just tell him the truth, that your father is a homophobic asshole, who made assumptions and leaked them to the press.”

Alec smiled at her, just looking for a minute, “Okay. Thank you, Isabelle.”

“No,” she shook her head, “Thank you, for trusting me with this Alec, I can’t understand how hard that must have been for you and again, I’m so proud of you.”

Alec could feel the start of tears burn at the back of his eyes and he leaned forward to embrace his sister. For now, everything would be okay, Alec told himself as he pulled out of his sister’s arms and headed to bed. His sister loved and accepted him, and that’s all he needed in that moment.

~~~

Morning practice rolled around and Alec had a hard time focusing, his timing off all day and he couldn’t seem to concentrate on his strokes. Hodge looks at him weird all practice, which is understandable, Alec doesn’t have days this bad. One of his major attributes as a swimmer, besides his speed, was his consistency, both in racing and in practice. Finally, Alec was able to escape into the locker room, which it turned out wasn’t better, Sebastian kept smirking at him the entire time he was getting dressed, and it made Alec’s stomach twist.

When Alec was ready to leave Sebastian calls “Have a long night, Lightwood? You certainly weren’t up to par with your… _girlfriend_ this morning.”

Alec looked at Sebastian, “What?”

“There’s something fishy about that, don’t you think? You and Lydia…” he said, a smirk taking over his face as he swung his swim bag over his shoulder and headed out. That was weird, Alec thought, but tried to shake it off. Sebastian just liked to throw people off.

Alec was snapped out of his thoughts by his phone chiming, a text from Magnus wanting to confirm the time and place they were meeting for lunch. He had wanted to just meet at Magnus’ place, but Magnus had suggested a café that he liked, and Alec hadn’t wanted to make a big deal out of it. He grabbed his stuff, texting Magnus back and heading to the animal shelter to begin his shift with Maia.

The shift passed slowly, Maia was preoccupied with her phone the entire time, and Alec didn’t ask, knowing better than to pry into her private life.

When the shift ends he and Maia part ways Alec heads over to a small café to meet Magnus for lunch. When he gets there he picks a booth in the back corner, away from windows and foot traffic, thus ensuring privacy.

Magnus arrives not a minute later and looks around. He doesn’t seem that surprised to find Alec sitting in the back booth, and makes a beeline for him.

“Hey, Magnus,” Alec greets a little uncertainly, feeling his gut twist in unease as Magnus sits across from him.

“Hey,” Magnus says, settling himself into his seat, “How’re you?”

“Um, I’m…okay?” Alec says, biting his lip, and looking down at the menu, “How…how about you?”

Magnus shrugs, “I’m a little confused, to be honest.”

Alec opens his mouth to respond, but then the waiter appears and asks for their orders. Alec blinks, he had never been here before and hadn’t really looked at the menu yet, glancing down he picks the first thing he sees. 

“The…Turkey Sub, please,” he says, “With an iced tea, thanks.”

“I’ll have the BLT and water would be great, thanks,” Magnus ordered, smiling a little at the waiter.

“Okay, I’ll take those,” he said picking up the menus, “And go put that order in right away.”

Once he had left Alec looked at Magnus, “Look, I mentioned it before, but I’m not out, to anyone, except my sister and Lydia, and I don’t think it’s an option right now, it might be at college, but right now…I don’t think it is with what my father does…Anyway, I had to make an excuse to get out of dinner last Tuesday and so I said I had a date…and they assumed with Lydia, and my dad just…ran with it. I promise, if I had known that he was going to run the story I would’ve at least warned you…but he did it without mine or Lydia’s consent.” Alec took a breath before continuing. “I’m really sorry, Magnus, I never wanted this to happen, you have to understand…”

Magnus seemed to be thinking for a moment before he looked up at Alec, “I get it. I wasn’t…angry, and I’m sorry if I came off that way, I was a little hurt, and confused by the whole thing, but now that I know…I can understand. So. What happens next?”

Alec looks at Magnus a little startled, he hadn’t expected his apology to be accepted so easily, “Uh, what do you mean?”

Just then their waiter comes back and they pause the conversation while he sets their plates down in front of them. When he leaves Magnus picks the conversation back up right where they left off.

“I mean, is Lydia going to become your official beard, or what?” Magnus asked attempting to appear casual, but Alec noticed the tense line of his shoulders and hard line of his mouth as he picked up his sandwich and took a bite.

“No!” Alec said, a little louder than he meant to, “No,” he repeated, more softly, “The best thing to do is to just let this…fizzle out. I talked to Lydia about it and she doesn’t want to make a statement and neither do I so, we’re just going to leave it.”

“Is that going to work?” Magnus asked, frowning, “Won’t the public just become more interested the more you ignore it?”

“Nah, it’s not really reelection season yet, and I’m the most boring Lightwood of all of us. So, they’ll milk this for a few days until some other celebrity does something noteworthy and then they’ll go back to ignoring me. The media only cares about a senator’s kid if they do something horrendous, like coming out as gay,” Alec snorts, “But me dating someone like Lydia…it’s boring.”

Magnus nodded, “Well then, I’m glad we got that cleared up, Alexander,” he said smiling and gripping his hand across the table. Alec glanced around quickly, no one could see at this angle, so he flipped his hand over and held Magnus’ hand across the table, squeezing a little.

“Me too, I was…really worried when I saw the article yesterday, about what you would think, I know we’ve only been on three dates and it really isn’t time to label things yet…but still, I really like you, Magnus,” Alec admitted, blushing.

Magnus squeezed his hand back, “I really like you too, Alexander, and I think—” but just then Alec’s phone started to ring and they both jumped and Alec dropped Magnus’ hand to fumble for his phone.

“I…It’s Isabelle, my sister…I should really—”

Magnus waves his hand, smiling reassuringly, “Go ahead, you’re fine.”

Alec answers, turning his body away from Magnus a little, “Hey, Isabelle, is something wrong?”

“Hey, and no, does something need to be wrong for me to call my big brother who I so rarely see these days?”

“No, but I am in the middle of something, so, did you need something?” Alec answers, glancing over at Magnus, who is tearing a napkin into pieces.

“I’m just calling to tell you we’re having guests for dinner apparently, from dad’s work, and mom wants you home early so you have time to take a shower and get ready. Apparently, it’s important for us to look out best. They must be some really wealthy donors or something,” Isabelle took a breath, “Anyway, I’m just calling to warn you not to be late again, or mom might just have an aneurysm, so I’m warning you.”

Alec felt his heart warm a little at his sister’s thoughtfulness, “Okay, thank you, Izzy, I won’t be late, I promise.”

“Of course, Alec, I’ll see you when you get home? God knows I’ll have to pick out your tie.”

Alec chuckled, “Yeah, you probably will, love you.”

“Love you, too,” Isabelle said, before hanging up. Alec followed suit and pocketed his phone again.

“I’m sorry about that, she was just telling me about tonight,” he explained to Magnus.

“That’s fine, Alexander, what’s happening tonight?”

“My parents are hosting a get together apparently,” Alec said.

“Ah, that sounds delightful, I’m sure you must be thrilled,” Magnus teased.

Alec laughed, “Oh yes, I can’t wait to sit through a stuffy dinner with forced polite conversation with a bunch of politicians spoiled kids.”

“Aren’t you the spoiled son of a politician?” Magnus asked, smirking as he took a drink.

“Well, now that you mention it…yes. But my parents don’t just hand me a thousand dollars to leave them alone,” Alec shot back.

“Hm, I think I’ll be the judge of that, I’m sure it entails a lengthy physical examination…” Magnus said, his eyes traveling up and down Alec’s body, causing a blush to rise in Alec’s cheeks.

Nevertheless, Alec spreads his arms out wide, “Be my guest, as long as it takes a very long time for you to judge I’m completely on board with the plan.”

Magnus laughed, “You never stop surprising me, Alec.”

~~~

The rest of the lunch passed quite nicely and Alec went to second practice in a great mood, which only improved when he realized that Sebastian was skipping again.  Even the stuffy dinner that night could only damper his mood so much, and he managed to get through the entire thing without a single mishap. He even came out smiling at the end, which was completely unprecedented behavior on his part. Only Izzy and Jace noticed, Izzy with a knowing little smirk, and Jace with confused bafflement.

When everyone had left the house Jace followed Alec up to his room, “What’s up with you dude? I’ve never seen you in such a good mood after one of those things.”

Alec bit his lip, he was in such a good mood and he wanted to confide in Jace… “Well, I’m dating someone, and it’s…going really well.”

“Who are you dating? Lydia?” Jace asked as he collapsed on the bed, he was frowning, “I thought that article was bullshit?”

“No, I’m not dating Lydia, it is bullshit…I’m…you remember Magnus Bane? He graduated from Idris Academy a year ago? He was a diver for four years and a captain?”

“Oh, yeah, I remember that guy, he was nice, good captain, according to you. But what do you have to do with him?” Jace asked, his eyebrows furrowed.

“Well…I saw him when I went to the gym and we started to talk and now we’re sort of…dating.” Alec held his breath.

His worry was pointless because after he finished talking Jace’s face broke into a huge grin, “Dude, congrats!” Jace lunged forward and tackled Alec to the ground, giving him a noogie.

“Hey!” Alec protested, trying to wrestle himself out from Jace’s grip.

Finally, Jace released him, and Alec sat back, his face twisted in fake annoyance as he attempted to fix his hair.

“I’m proud of you man, Magnus seemed like a great guy when I knew him. Are Izzy and I gonna get to meet him soon? Wait, does Izzy even know?” Jace asked.

“Well, she knows I’m dating a guy, but I didn’t tell her who…”

“I’ll take care of it, don’t worry, man she’s gonna be so excited.”

“I wish you guys would stop talking about me behind my back so blatantly, you could at least do me the general courtesy of a) saying to my face, or b) not telling me all about it later,” Alec grumbled.

Jace waved him off, “Where would the fun in that be? But you are cool if I tell Izzy who it is?”

“Sure, that’s one less thing I have to tell her. Make sure she doesn’t wake me up, though, I’m going to bed. It’s been a long week.”

“Sure,” Jace clapped Alec on the shoulder and got up to leave, “Goodnight, Alec, I’ll see you later.”

“’Night Jace.”

~~~

The next morning at practice Hodge reminds them of the meet that is coming up in the next week.

“On Monday, for those that are going, we’re going to start a small taper for the week, just to rest your bodies, so be warned.”

The team cheered, taper, even a small one was always the best. Alec smiled as he wandered into the locker room, and even Sebastian’s creepy looks couldn’t shake his good mood. When Alec was dressed in workout clothes he headed out to meet Lydia.

Their work out was quick, as they were expected to start a small taper that meant lessening everything, so they did light and medium weights. While Alec walked out he dialed Magnus.

“Hey, Alec, what’s up?” Magnus answered.

“Hi, nothing, was just calling to see when you’re free?” Alec asked quickly.

“Oh,” Alec could hear the surprised smile through the phone, “Well…I can’t do tonight or tomorrow, but we could do what we did the other Sunday? Where I met you at the pool?”

“Yeah…that sounds great,” he said, smiling.

 

When Alec gets to the pool on Sunday it’s empty, only the lifeguard, who Alec knows is going to leave ten minutes into Alec’s work out, as usual. Alec had texted Magnus to meet him a little earlier than normal, Alec wasn’t going to be swimming that long after all, since they were starting taper Monday anyway.

Hopping in, Alec got right to work, and half an hour in he looked up to see the life guard gone, and Magnus in his place. Never before had he been so grateful for such an incompetent staff.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hi, Alec, you almost done?” Magnus asked, he was dressed quite down from what Alec was used to seeing, jean shorts and a casual light purple V-neck.

“Yeah, just let me warm down, and then I’ll get dressed, we’re just gonna go to the park, if that’s okay? I thought we could pick up some food on the way…” Alec double checks.

Magnus smiles, “That sounds lovely, Alexander.”

Alec smiles at him, and hurries to finish his warm down…well as much as he can speed a warm down up, that is. When he’s finished he pulls himself out of the pool, dripping wet and catch’s the way Magnus’ eyes linger a little longer than necessary on his chest. Then an absolutely wicked idea comes to mind…he does have an extra set of clothes in his bag anyway, plus the life guard is still gone.

He moves towards Magnus, who must know somethings up the moment Alec’s arms reach out towards him, because he starts to back away from Alec.

“Alec…” Magnus said, cautiously.

“Magnus…” Alec replied, smiling innocently.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Magnus questioned, still moving away as Alec advanced.

“I’m just trying to give you a proper greeting,” Alec said, still maintaining his smile.

Finally realizing Alec’s full intentions Magnus holds his hands further in front of him, and keeps backing away.

 “Alexander Gideon Lightwood, if you come anywhere near me…” he starts.

“Oh, come on, you won’t give your boyfriend a hug?” Alec smirked.

Magnus stopped moving, “Boyfriend?”

Alec paused to, lowering his arms a little, “I-I mean unless you don’t want to be? I just thought, we’ve been on three and a half dates, going on a fourth...so I just thought we could put a-a label on it?”

Magnus smiled, “Yeah...yeah, I’d love it if it was official…”

Alec’s smirk returned, “Well then, we have to have a celebratory hug!”

“What, no! These...uh, jeans! They’re designer, and you’re soaking wet! I don’t want to be soaking wet,” Magnus protested, once again backing away from Alec’s advances.  

Alec gave the jeans a quick once over, and grinned triumphantly, for all his lack of fashion knowledge he knows those _are not_ designer.

 “No they aren’t; I know that much at least. Now, come on, give me a hug, boyfriend.”

“Never!” Magnus laughed, but then he hit the wall, and his eyes widened as he realized he was trapped, “Alexander, I swear, if you come any closer...I’m not joking! Alexander!”

Alec’s arms wrapped around Magnus’ waist, and lifted him just a little so he was on his tiptoes, Alec buried his face in Magnus’ neck and smiled. After a second Magnus’ arms settled gingerly around his neck.

“Ugh, now I’m soaking wet,” Magnus grumbled, “I’m gonna get you back for this, I hope you realize,” he said, but Alec could feel him smile gently into his hair.

“I know, but it’s totally worth it,” Alec said, and suddenly he bent his knees, wrapped his arms around Magnus’ thighs and hefted Magnus over his shoulder in a fireman's carry, turned, took four large steps and jumped into the pool.

“Alexander!” Magnus screeched as they surfaced.

“ _Now_ , you’re soaking wet,” Alec said, smiling widely as he set Magnus down.

Magnus looked at Alec incredulously for a moment, “You are so going to pay for that!” he threatened, before he launched himself at Alec’s head and tried to push him under. Alec lets himself be pushed under, and when he resurfaces he captures Magnus’ lips before he can shove him under again. “You’re lucky my make-up is water proof,” Magnus mumbles against his lips, and Alec just laughs, pecking his lips again.

“I think you look beautiful with or without it.”

When the life guard comes back they both get lectured, and they apologize profusely before hurrying to the locker room to get changed, where they both fall over each other laughing.  

“Tell me you have an extra set of clothes in that huge bag of yours,” Magnus says as he strips his shirt over his head.

“Uh...yeah,” Alec says, his eyes glued to Magnus’ perfect torso, ripping his eyes away he registers the question, “Yeah, just…in my bag, I’ll get it.” He bends over and rummages through his bag, pulling out a pair of sweatpants and t-shirt, holding them out to Magnus.

“Thank you, darling,” he said, a bare hint of a smirk on his face.

When they were both dressed they headed out and dropped their stuff in Alec’s car and walked over to the park.

“I was thinking,” Alec started, only a little apprehensive, “Did you want to come to my meet next weekend? You don’t have to and I know it’ll probably be really boring, but both of my siblings are going to be there, so it might be a nice opportunity for you to meet them.”

Magnus smiles, “I would love to, Alec,” he says, catching Alec’s hand and squeezing as they walk, Alec glances around surreptitiously for paparazzi, and seeing none, he grips Magnus’ hand back.

“Great, I’ll text you the details later.”

“I look forward to it, now, let’s feed the ducks.”

~~~

On Tuesday Magnus gets a cold, and since Alec is on taper and has time to do so, he goes to Magnus’ place after working to hang out. Magnus tries to protest, citing the fact that he doesn’t want to get Alec sick as his reason, but Alec ignores him.

On Thursday Magnus ropes Alec into helping him do his nails, because while he’s apparently feeling better, his hands are still shaky, and he would rather not risk it. Alec agrees, not even pretending to be grumpy about it.

“I did not expect you to be so good at this,” Magnus laughed as Alec swiped the brush over his left middle finger.

Alec chuckled softly, “Yeah, Izzy used to have problems with her right hand, so she asked me to help. Then she started practicing and she doesn’t need it anymore…I might have missed it.”

Magnus nodded in understanding, “Well you are very good. Don’t be surprised if I find any and all excuses for you to do all my nails from now on.”

“I wouldn’t mind,” Alec laughed lightly, trying to stay focused on painting evenly, even as he squeezed Magnus’ hand.

“Good.”

They lapse into silence for a little bit as Alec finishes Magnus’ left hand and moves onto his right.

“You know; I’ve been meaning to ask you…” Magnus started.

“Yeah?” Alec encouraged, glancing up briefly at Magnus through his fringe.

“Why did you get Lochte? You don’t strike me as a dog person.”

Alec froze for a second, contemplating how to explain, “I’m not, really, to be honest I’m not really an animal person. I mean I like them enough, I work at an animal shelter, but I’ve never really wanted a dog…”

“So why’d you get Lochte?”

“Well...It was mostly because...after Max died I was really lonely...it’s probably one of the few spontaneous decisions I’ve ever made. When Max died my whole family sort of...fell apart. Isabelle was in shambles; she didn’t come out of her room for anything but food. Jace was avoiding the house, and my parents...my parents threw themselves into work. I was alone. No one needed me, and...They forgot I needed them to some extent. I knew it wasn’t on purpose, and I never blamed them for it, everyone deals with grief differently. But I needed _someone_ , and one day I was volunteering at the shelter, and they brought in this gangly Newfoundland puppy, who was about a year old, and he just...reminded me of Max, and of companionship, of a time where we, my siblings and I, had all been together. That had seemed so far away for a really long time...so I got him.”

Alec could feel Magnus’ eyes on him as he finished his nails. When he was done Magnus reached out and gently cupped Alec’s cheeks, lifting his head so Alec had to look in Magnus’ eyes.

“Darling…” he said, “I’m so sorry you felt alone, I wish that I had been able to be there for you.”

Alec smiled at him, leaning into the hand on his cheek, “Thank you, but it was a while ago, I’m alright.”

“Still, I wish I had been there for you. But I’m here now,” Magnus said, and kissed him lightly on the lips.

           

After practice on Friday Hodge reminds the team to go to bed early, and visualize before letting them go and get dressed. When everyone has left and its only Sebastian and Alec left Sebastian approach’s where Alec is sat on the bench tying his shoes. Alec can’t say he’s surprised, Sebastian had been looking at him weirdly all week.

“What do you want Sebastian?” Alec asks resignedly.

“I want a lot of things, Lightwood,” he says, trailing his fingers over the lockers, “I want to be the best, I want to be the next Michael Phelps, blah, blah, blah. You know how it is, I don’t have to explain it to you.”

“What does any of that have to do with me, Sebastian? Last I checked I can’t control how good you are, or if you show up to practice or not,” Alec said, standing and gathering his things.

“No…but you can control your image.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Alec paused, turning to look at Sebastian.

Sebastian shrugged and leaned against the lockers, “Well in the swimming community you’ve been making waves for years, always just shy of that Olympic trials cut at Nationals. People know who you are in the swim community.”

“You realize this is swimming, not the NFL, or whatever, right? Nobody really talks about who’s who.”

“Not on television, no, but they do talk, and they’ve been talking about you. You are in the spotlight in the swimming community. However small that spotlight might be.”

Alec rolls his eyes, “So work harder, Sebastian, I don’t need to tell you that you’re a good swimmer, you know that, but you could be better if you just put in the effort at practices.”

“But, that’s what so good about this arrangement that’s about to happen,” Sebastian laughed, “I don’t have to.”

Alec felt something cold slid through his veins and pool in his stomach, “What do you mean?”

“I mean that I’ve been watching you, Lightwood, for the past few weeks, and there have been some interesting occurrences in your love life—”

Sebastian starts, but Alec cuts him off, stepping into his personal space he hisses, “You don’t know anything, Sebastian,” he hissed.

 “Ohh, but I know enough, enough to ruin _everything_.” Sebastian holds up a hand and starts to tick things off on his fingers, “I know about Lydia, that you and her aren’t really dating, and I know who you’re really dating. Does the name Magnus Bane mean anything to you?”

“Get to the point Sebastian.” Alec can feel dread clogging his throat.

“I want to be the center of attention, obviously, if you start to lose a few races, and I come in with better times than you…well.”

“What? You think that if I foil a few races this supposed spotlight will focus on you? I hate to break it to you, Sebastian, but you have to have the _times_ , it doesn’t matter if you win races.”

Sebastian rolled his eyes, “I’m perfectly aware of that, Lightwood, and I can get those times, but if you hadn’t noticed _you’re_ in the way,” he explains, his voice patronizing, “The media loves you, and I refuse to be the Lochte to your Phelps.”

Alec sighs, “What do you want me to do, Sebastian?”

Sensing that he’s won, Sebastian smirks, “This meet tomorrow, you’re swimming the 200 breaststroke. It’s not your usual event, but it is mine, and I need to win, so if you would be so kind and let me touch you out…everything will be fine. If you don’t…well let’s just say I have some very interesting pictures of you and this Magnus Bane, getting dinner, bowling, saying goodbye outside his apartment…”

Alec closes his eyes, Sebastian is right, he does well in that event, but it won’t be a big deal to let Sebastian take first place, considering all the dirt he apparently has on Alec, and it’s not like they go against each other that often anyway, one race won’t kill him. “Fine, we have a deal, but you need to pull your weight, it needs to be realistic or it’ll be too obvious.”

“Sure,” Sebastian smirks again, holding out his hand to shake, but Alec ignores him and walks away. 

That day Alec tries to go to bed early, he visualizes, eats dinner and goes to his room to read for an hour before sleeping, his regular pre-meet routine. But he can hardly focus, at dinner all he can think about is getting outed by Sebastian. He looks at his parents, both eating dinner so calmly. Their reactions to what Sebastian would spread. Since Max died their relationships with their other children had grown distance, as had their relationship with each other. But Alec being outed…well that would further drive the family apart, and Alec can’t imagine letting that happen. 

When he tries to go to sleep all he can think about it is being thrown into the limelight. Media scrutiny would quadruple. A gay politician’s son was always big news. Sebastian finding out about them was a wakeup call, Alec realized, from now on Magnus and him would have to be more careful. Finally, Alec falls asleep, and even though his sleep should be anything but peaceful he manages to fall into a dreamless sleep.

~~~

Morning came with his regular routine, and him, Isabelle and Jace all piled into the car and headed to the pool. When they get there Alec checks in, hugs Isabelle, high fives Jace, and head to the locker room to get a locker and change into his suit.

When it’s time for Alec to go out there he ignores Sebastian completely, making an effort to put his bag as far from Sebastian as possible in the area the team had claimed. Lydia arrives a few minutes later and sets her stuff next to Alec, pulling out her cap and tucking it into her suit straps as she bundles her hair into a bun. When she’s done she holds out the cap to Alec and he grips one edge while she grips the other and he helps her pull it over her head.

“Should we go grab a lane for warm-up before it gets to crowded?” he asks, gathering his own cap and goggles.

“Sure, what are you swimming today?” Lydia asks as they start heading down to the other end of the pool.

“400 IM, 200 Breaststroke and the 200 IM, that’s it for this meet,” Alec says.

“Lane four and five are open,” Lydia pointed out, and they made their way down to the blocks, “And you’re only swimming three events, all on the same day?” When Alec nods, Lydia glowers, “Lucky bastard, that never happens to me.”

“Yeah, no long distance for me today, Hodge wanted to do all those at the next meet, who knows why. What are you swimming?”

“200 IM, the 200 Butterfly, 100 Freestyle and the 200 Backstroke,” Lydia told him, grimacing.

“That sucks, he’s got you all over the board with those. At least you’re going to get that cut in the fly today, I can feel it,” Alec nudged her shoulder encouragingly.

Lydia nodded, “I’m certainly going to try, don’t want to make you go with just Sebastian this year, do I?”

“Yeah, please don’t. That was horrible, and I never want to experience that again. By the way, how’s your shoulder?” Alec asks as he stretch’s his arm over his head. A few of their teammates have trickled down to the lanes to help them stake them out from any other teams.

Lydia smiles, “All cleared. I went to the athletic trainer the other day, he said my shoulder was just over worked, so after this meet I’m going to ice it and take a day and a half off. The taper really helped, and I talked to Hodge, he agreed that I should take it down a notch, just to be safe.”

“Good, I’m glad,” Alec says, and returns to stretching. He looks up into the stands and tries to find his siblings, wondering if Magnus has found them yet. Surprisingly it’s easy to find them in the stands, as Magnus is wearing a hot pink shirt with his hair styled into something that Alec would have to say resembled a ski ramp if pressed. Magnus must see him looking because he waves, and Alec’s smile widens, and he waves back.

Suddenly Alec feels someone at his back and he turns around to see Sebastian leering at him.

He leans in to whisper in Alec’s ear, “Remember our deal, Lightwood, or that pretty boy toy of yours is going to splattered all over the morning news, and I’ll be the first person on FOX news, all ready to spill the beans about your little…escapades.”

“Shut up, Sebastian, I agreed, no need to rub it in,” Alec hissed, glancing around to see if anyone was looking at them, but no one was paying them any attention.

“Mm, just…reinforcing the idea.”

Before Alec could respond Hodge walked over and they started warm up. The meet passed as quickly as any swim meet did, and Alec was able to shove Sebastian out of his mind after he got the cut for Nationals in the 200 IM. As he pulled himself out of the pool he looked up in the stands where his family and Magnus were sitting, Jace was giving him a thumbs up, and Izzy was clapping, but Magnus was just smiling proudly at him. Alec felt a warmth settle in his belly at that proud smile, and he grinned back at Magnus, who blew him a kiss (which he caught, and if anyone asked he would deny it to his dying day).

The last event he was swimming crept up after the 200 IM, it was the 200 breaststroke and for once Sebastian was in the lane next to him.

“Remember Lightwood,” he warned, shaking his arms out.

Alec tuned him out and continued his pre-race ritual. As the last heat finished he stepped up to the blocks and shook his hands, pressed his goggles to make sure they were tight to his face, and took a deep breath. When the whistle blew he was ready, and he stepped up onto the starting block, placing his left foot behind him, curling his right toes over the edge.

“Take your mark…”

Alec bent, gripping the block with both hands, his body tense.

_Beep_.

He launched himself off the blocks into the pool. Right from the start the whole race was weird. Alec was vitally aware of his and Sebastian’s positions the entire time, both in comparison to each other and to the rest in the pool. To be honest it wasn’t much of race, at the fifth lap Alec was able to pull away from the group and Sebastian followed, which made Alec feel a little better, at least.

When the eighth lap hit Alec watched Sebastian carefully, he couldn’t let Sebastian win by a lot, it needed to be believable, and Sebastian had never won against Alec, not even in his best event. When they hit the flags Alec saw Sebastian take an extra stroke, and…damn it.

Alec knew, even before he raised his head out of the water, that he had won.

Taking of his cap and goggles Alec looked at the score board. He had out-touched Sebastian by .05 seconds. Glancing over he saw Sebastian, his face contorted into a look of pure anger.

When the next event had started and both were out of the pool he and Sebastian headed over to talk to Hodge.

“Close race boys, but Alec you looked a little distracted, and your stroke was a lot sloppier than normal, so next time just try to focus,” Hodge said, and Alec nodded. Hodge turned to Sebastian, “That was a good race Sebastian, except right at the end, you took an extra stoke, remember you need to keep your stroke number consistent. We’ll work on that this coming week, okay? Now, both of you go warm down, Alec good job today.”

Alec started to head to the warm down pool, but Sebastian gripped his arm and dragged him towards the locker room. Not wanting to cause a scene Alec followed, jerking his arm out of Sebastian’s grip.

When they had found a secluded spot in the locker room Sebastian stopped and turned to Alec.

“You only had to do one thing, and you failed, so now, guess what?”

“It’s not my fault you took an extra stroke, if you hadn’t you would’ve won, so don’t blame this one on me. I did what I was supposed to do, you just screwed it up for yourself,” Alec snapped.

Sebastian’s eyes narrowed, “Perhaps, but this could still help us, after all it makes my win more believable…” Sebastian trails off, before a grin spreads over his face, “Yes, this is alright, next meet though, I have to win, you only have one more chance, Lightwood, so make it count, you hear me?”

“Yeah, I hear you,” Alec sneers, turning to leave before Sebastian can stop him.

Alec warms down, or attempts to, but he’s too angry to really calm his muscles down, and he ends up doing a 600 and calling it a day. He packs his stuff angrily and says a quick goodbye and good luck to Lydia, before he changes.

As he leaves the locker room he sees Isabelle, Jace and Magnus waiting for him and he tries to get himself under control. When he gets to them he hugs all of them, lingering a little in Magnus’ embrace, tucking his head into Magnus’ neck and trying to breathe normally. He pulls back after only a minute, wishing he could kiss Magnus, but he refrains, reminding himself that they need to be more careful.  

“We thought you might want to drive back with Magnus, Alec?” Isabelle offers.

Alec smiles, a little forced, but still, “Sure, that sounds great, do you guys want to get dinner at the usual spot still?”

“Of course, we already told Magnus he was required to come,” Isabelle says, all smiles.

Alec’s smile becomes a little less forced, both of his siblings seem to approve of Magnus, then. “Okay, I’ll see you guys there, then.”

Alec and Magnus reach the car and Alec clambers in, when Magnus has shut his door and turned the key in the ignition, Alec leans over the counsel and grabs Magnus’ shirt, pulling him across the console to kiss him.

“Thank you, for coming, I know it was probably boring, but it…meant a lot to me,” he murmurs after they break apart.

“Well,” Magnus says, clearing his throat, more than a little caught off guard (and damn if Alec doesn’t want to put that look on Magnus’ face again and again), “If that’s the reaction I get for doing regular boyfriend things I might just step it up a notch.”

Alec laughs, and settles into his seat, reaching his hand out to hold Magnus’ as they drive. For right now he makes himself forget about Sebastian and everything that is looming. Instead he focuses on the moment, the way Magnus looks, how he talks to his siblings during dinner, and everything about Magnus that is making Alec fall in love with him, despite Sebastian’s threats, and hiss fathers certain disapproval.

~~~

The following day Alec skips family dinner and gets takeout from one of his favorite restaurants, heading over to Magnus’ place for a more relaxed version of dinner and a movie, subtly staying away from public eyes. However guilty it makes him feel, he knows it’s necessary, he can’t risk another Sebastian. One blackmailer is more than enough.  

When Magnus opens the door Alec enters quickly, kicking the door shut behind him before he swoops in and kisses him, “Hey,” he says when they part.

Magnus blinks a little, seemingly continuously surprised at Alec’s boldness, “Hey…what’d you bring for dinner?”

“Chinese, of course,” Alec replies, stepping further into the apartment, “One of the residents was walking in in front of me, by the way.”

“Oh, that’s right, you didn’t buzz up, I didn’t notice. Though to be fair if I had I wouldn’t’ve remembered after such a…warm greeting,” Magnus said smirking, and Alec flushes a little, no matter how comfortable Alec has gotten with touching Magnus, he’s having a harder time getting over what Magnus says _after_ the fact.

They wandered into the kitchen and got the dishes out and started loading their plates with food. They worked in silence for a while, just moving around each other. When they had piled their plates high with food they headed to the living room, and Magnus set up the TV to play the fourth “Harry Potter,” (Magnus had been outraged when he realized Alec had only ever read the books).

“How was your day? I forgot to ask,” Magnus said as he sank down onto the sofa next to Alec.

Alec shrugged, “It was alright,” he twirled some noodles onto his chopsticks, “Practice is back to being practice, and my parents are suspicious of where I’m going for dinner, but they haven’t said anything.”

“What if they do say something?” Magnus asks, his brow furrowed as he looked at Alec.

“I don’t know; I haven’t really thought about it. They might just leave it alone, after the Lydia situation happened they don’t really want to get involved.”

“That’s good, at least they seem to be off your back.”

The previews are still playing and neither of them move to skip ahead.

“Speaking of parents…” Alec starts, and he sees Magnus tense a little, but he doesn’t say anything, so Alec continues, “What…about yours?” Alec doesn’t knows what Magnus’ father does, all he knows is that Magnus’ dad his parents met four years ago when the trial was happening, but Magnus doesn’t seem to see or even talk about his father often.

Magnus is quiet for a moment, when he does start speaking he keeps his eyes focused on the TV, “My mother killed herself when I was very young, and I went to live with my birth father. Everyone knows what Asmodeus Bane does for a living. He runs prisons for profit,” Magnus snorts in contempt, before continuing, “We don’t…see eye to eye exactly, but he helps me out, pays for college, this apartment. So long as I don’t bash his business to the public, we’re fine.”

Just then the movie menu comes up and Magnus grabs the remote and hits play, signaling the end of the conversation. Alec doesn’t particularly mind, he hadn’t known what to say to Magnus’ confession anyway.  Instead he sets his plate down on his lap and wraps his arm around Magnus’ shoulder. Magnus leans into him, settling against his chest, with his head over Alec’s heart.

They drift to sleep like that, Magnus lulled by the beating of Alec’s heart, and Alec by Magnus’ steady breaths. Neither wake up until Alec’s phone starts to ring.

Alec jerks, jostling Magnus, and blinks for a minute before he reaches for his phone.

Realizing its Izzy, he answers, his voice groggy, “Hello?”

“Hey, Alec, Mom and Dad are wondering where you are, they haven’t heard from you and they thought you said you’d be home by eleven? They just wanted me to call and…check in.”

“Oh, uh, yeah, I just…just lost track of time, um, I’m on my way home now, tell them not to wait up,” he says, staring to fumble for his things. Of course his parents were going to start paying attention to where he was now they knew he and Lydia weren’t a thing.

“Mhm, will do, big brother, see you later.”

Alec hangs up and looks at Magnus, “I have to go.”

“I figured as much,” Magnus says, and stands, stretching his arms above his head, Alec gets distracted for a minute at the strip of skin revealed as Magnus’ arms stretch over his head.

He snaps back to attention when Magnus drops his arms down and the skin is covered by his shirt once again. He follows suit, standing and shoving his wallet and keys into his pockets. Magnus leads him to the door and Alec pulls on his shoes. When he’s finally all ready to go he turns to Magnus.

“I had a great time tonight.”

“So did I…” Magnus replies, leaning against the wall. Alec’s breath stutters as Magnus’ shirt lifts just enough for him to catch sight of his navel again. He takes a step closer to Magnus and bends his head, he pauses just before his lips touch Magnus’…

“You’re such a tease, Alexander,” Magnus admonishes, and Alec is just about to reply, but then Magnus leans up and closes the distance between Alec’s lips and his. Magnus’ arms wrap around his neck, his hands burying themselves in Alec’s hair. Alec encircles Magnus’ waist and runs his hands up and down his back, until one settles on Magnus’ upper back, and the other slides its way down into Magnus’ back pocket.

“Mm, sneaky,” Magnus chuckles, pulling a millimeter away, before Alec pulls him back in, giving his ass an affectionate squeeze.

They make out for a few more minutes, both of Alec’s hands making their way down to Magnus’ ass. He drops his arm to Magnus’ thigh and lifts his leg, wrapping it around his hip. Alec opens his mouth, and the kiss turns filthy. Before Alec knows he really has to get home, or else he might never leave. Pulling away from Magnus he gives him one last, lingering kiss before squeezing his hand and walking out the door.

~~~

Alec is boxing in the gym after practice the next week when Sebastian comes to stand beside him, leaning on an unused punching bag.

“Are you sure it’s going to last?” Sebastian leers, after a few minutes of watching Alec. He straightens up and takes a step closer to Alec.

Alec ignores him, his fist hitting the punching bag.

“Oh, not going to respond, are we? That’s alright, I can keep talking. I was looking over Bane’s history the other day, and let’s just say it isn’t pretty. He leaves a trail of broken hearts when it comes to relationships, and he doesn’t discriminate when it comes to gender either. What do you think makes you special? I suppose it could be your body, but your personality is quite…dull. I really don’t know what could interest Bane, Camille was a much better choice.”

Alec’s fist ricochets off the punching bag and he whirls to face Sebastian.

“Shut up, I’m doing what you asked, alright, so just leave me alone!” Alec snaps, roughly unwrapping his hands and brushing past Sebastian, but Sebastian grabs his arm, forcing him to a stop.

“Oh, I don’t know, I quite enjoy teasing you like this...remember, Lightwood, I have the power, not only do I have photos of you and Magnus Bane, I also have reporters lining up to help destroy the Lightwood powerhouse so thoroughly it’ll leave lasting, _generational_ effects.”

With that Sebastian walked away, leaving Alec standing in the gym staring after him. When he had gotten into a relationship with Magnus he had forgotten the effects being outed would have on his siblings. If he came out the only the first thing out of anybody’s mouth would be ‘Hey, isn’t your brother the gay senators kid?’ and that wasn’t something Alec wanted them to deal with. Sighing, he heads to the locker room and gets dressed, determined to ignore it, everything would be fine if he just…kept doing what he was doing.

~~~

The next meet comes quicker than Alec expects. He knows he has to lose to Sebastian to help maintain his secrecy. He didn’t want to believe what Sebastian was saying, that he wasn’t the only person involved in this scheme to take him down, but he knew it was entirely possible, his father was a politician after all.

Alec can’t decide if it’s better or worse to not have Magnus this time. On one hand, he’d like to see his boyfriend, but on the other he doesn’t want Magnus to come watch a long race only for him to lose. The entire time leading up to the race Alec is a nervous wreck, he’s been pacing in front of Lydia and Simon for the past fifteen minutes.

“Why are you this nervous?” Lydia asks eventually. She’s sitting next to Simon, who looks up from the comic book he’s reading (and also guarding with his life, trying to keep it dry, Alec doesn’t understand why he even brings them).

“Yeah, you’ve been pacing since your last race, what’s going on?” Simon pushes, putting his comic away gently.

Alec shrugs, “Just…pre-race jitters I guess, nothing big.”

“Well sit down, you’re wasting energy standing,” Lydia tells him, clearing a space for him to sit between her and Simon, “You still have at least twenty minutes before you need to warm up anyway.”

Alec sits, and lets Lydia and Simon draw him into a conversation, but all he can feel is Sebastian’s eyes on him as he comes back from the warm down/warm up pool. It makes his skin crawl.

When Alec goes to warm up he tries to focus himself in the water, something that before then he had never had trouble doing, but now his thoughts are consumed by thoughts of Magnus, his parents and Sebastian. It takes him a full 300 before he finally relaxes and is able to concentrate on the race coming up.

Behind the blocks is almost as bad as when Alec was pacing, but this time the timers force him to sit down. There’s too much activity going on behind the blocks for him to pace without getting in people’s way. He settles in the chair behind his lane and forces himself to focus on his routine. It’s all about getting into the racing mindset, he reminds himself.

“Don’t forget what’s at stake, Lightwood, get above 8:25.5, okay?” a voice hisses in Alec’s ear, and he jumps. There goes getting in the right mindset, he thinks and turns and sees Sebastian looming behind him, “Just get out there and remember what’s on the line.”

With that he walks away, leaving Alec considerably less focused than before.

The race…well the race goes horribly. Alec is off pace the entire time, which while on purpose, causes his counter (Simon) to keep shaking the counter when he gets to the wall. Even though he manages to keep winning, he knows that it’s noticeable that he’s unfocused in the water.

Alec finishes the race and he takes a minute before he turns his head to the score board. He immediately wishes he hadn’t. It was bad, he hadn’t performed so poorly in the 1000 since freshman year. After the next heat is started Alec pulls himself out of the pool.

“Now, that’s what I’m talking about, Lightwood, good job,” Sebastian says as Alec passes him on his way to talk to Hodge.

When Alec reaches Hodge at the edge of the pool Hodge doesn’t waste a second, “I don’t know what went on with you out there, Alec, but you were completely distracted. It was plain as day, and your time reflected that,” Hodge says, and Alec looks at the ground, “I don’t know what it is, but the past few weeks you’ve not been yourself, you’re inconsistent, and that is something you’ve never been. I’ve always told you that you’re the most consistent swimmer I’ve ever seen, and that that’s a huge draw for college recruiting. Colleges want someone who can deliver a hundred percent of the time, you hear me?”

“I hear you, coach, I’m sorry,” Alec apologizes.

“Don’t apologize, just try and get your head back in the game. Whatever is throwing your game, stop letting it, you’ve got a lot riding on this, and a lot of people rooting for you. You’re better than this,” Hodge claps a hand on Alec’s shoulder, “Now go warm down.”

With that Hodge turns away, a clear dismissal.

After Alec warms down and gets dressed he heads out to where Isabelle is waiting, having pulled the car around.

When he gets in the car she just smiles at him, “Burgers? Jace is meeting us there.”

“Sure,” Alec agrees, quietly and pulls out his phone to check his email. When it refreshes, he sees an email from Luke Garroway, the recruitment officer for the NYU Violets. He hadn’t expected him to make contact so fast. His stomach twisting Alec exits out of it, deciding he’ll read it in the morning.

~~~

When Alec finally opens the email, he’s sitting on a bench outside Magnus’ building, about to go inside. After he opens the email it takes him a minute to actually read it.

 

_Dear Mr. Lightwood,_

_I hope you are doing well. It has come to my attention recently that your athletic performance has been slipping. This is a customary email to inform you that New York University runs a three-strike system. A strong, consistent athlete is of great value to the school. You have those qualities, and the potential to be a NYU Violet. But if your performance continues to be inconsistent, you may be reconsidered for a scholarship. I hope you can refocus, you would be a great asset to the NYU Swim and Dive team._

_Sincerely,_

_Luke Garroway_

_Recruiter of Athletic Talent for New York University_

 

 Alec’s heart skips a beat, and he leans his head back on the wall behind the bench. A three-strike system. He’s already used one strike. Taking a deep breath Alec thinks. He can’t go back to being the consistent swimmer he was, or else Sebastian will destroy his family, but he’s also risking his scholarship to NYU if he keeps bending to Sebastian’s will. Alec feels his phone vibrate in his hand, probably Magnus, wondering where he is. They’d agreed to meet after Alec’s second practice that day, Alec was still going home for dinner, but they had both wanted to see each other after such long weekends.

Alec stands, deciding to table this for at least another two hours. He wants to enjoy his time with his boyfriend. He presses the buzzer, and Magnus’ voice sounds through.

“Finally! I was wondering what was taking you so long,” he calls through before buzzing Alec in.

Alec hopped in the elevator and pressed the floor for Magnus’ apartment. When he reaches the floor and steps out of the elevator Magnus is already waiting in the doorway.

“You know, you didn’t even ask me who I was, for all you know I could’ve been a serial killer,” Alec says as he steps closer to Magnus and opens his arms to hug him, he needed one after that email.

“Euch, you smell like chlorine, and I knew it was you, you’ve been sitting at that bench for fifteen minutes,” Magnus mumbled grumpily as Alec wound his arms around his waist.

“Wait, really?” Alec asked, curiously, pulling back just enough to sniff his arm, “I don’t smell it. And I was checking my email.”

“How can you not smell it?” Magnus asked.

Alec shrugged, settling his arm back around Magnus’ waist and pulling him back in, “I don’t know, maybe it’s that sensory thing? Like you get so used to it you don’t smell it anymore?”

“Habituation, I think,” Magnus answered, trying to pull away, Alec didn’t let him, “And, take my word for it, you reek...Alexander, darling?”

“Hmm?” Alec hummed, from where he had buried his face. This was one of his favorite parts in hugging Magnus, the feeling of being wrapped completely in his arms, so much so that the whole world ceased to matter.

“You aren’t usually this clingy—not that I mind it, of course, but it is...a tad out of character for you,” Magnus asked, gently starting to run a hand through Alec’s hair.

Alec sighed, “I just…read an email from the recruiter from NYU, warning me about the three-strike policy they have about athletes, it’s been a long day.”

“Oh?” Magnus said, trying to guide Alec into the apartment without breaking the embrace. When they were successfully in the apartment Magnus kicked the door shut with his foot and pulled Alec to the couch.

“Yeah, apparently my…athletic achievement has been lacking, so they sent me an email to remind me to ‘keep focused’ that I have ‘great potential,’ blah, blah, blah.”

Pulling them both down on the couch Magnus laid them down, and let Alec settle between his legs, and rest his head on his collarbone, just below his neck.

“That seems stupid, all athletes have bad days.”

Alec shrugs, propping his chin on his hands to better look at Magnus, “I haven’t really. It’s one of my main drawing points, why NYU is so interested. They look at my times and I’ve never stagnated, or faltered. My times usually get better and better each meet. Not to be cocky, but I…was a recruiter’s wet dream. Perfect grades, outstanding test scores, consistent times that beat everyone around me, model citizens with stellar recommendations, wealthy parents that would donate generously. They thought I was perfect…But now they think I’m cracking…”

Magnus hummed, “You’re not being cocky, what you said is all true. For the record, _I_ don’t think you’re cracking. I think you’re just stressing out, letting the pressure get to you, and you don’t know how to handle it. This is a learning curve for you, I think, so learn from it. Try and pin point the differences. You’ll be perfectly fine. I believe in you.”

Alec looked up at Magnus, “I…Thank you, Magnus.” Alec already knew the difference, nobody had ever dangled outing him as blackmail before. Trying to distract himself from that unpleasant thought he leaned up he pressed his lips to Magnus’ for a kiss, which was quick escalated Alec opened his mouth and Magnus took the hint, both their tongues met, and twisted, fighting for dominance.

Magnus’ hands traveled over Alec’s back before resting on his ass, and squeezing, Alec let out a moan and ground down on Magnus’ thigh. Alec bit Magnus’ lip before pulling away and trailing biting kisses across his jaw, and down his throat. He lingered on the junction where Magnus’ neck met his collarbone, leaving a nice sized hickey. Magnus moaned, and pulled Alec’s hips further into him, grinding up against him. Alec moved back up to Magnus’ mouth and kissed him, open, wet and filthy.

“Mm,” Alec hummed disappointedly as he heard his alarm go off, reluctantly he pulled away from Magnus, “That’s my cue,” he mumbled against Magnus’ mouth, “I need to leave to get home in time for dinner.”

Magnus sighed, “Are you sure? This is much more fun than dinner with your parents.”

“As true as that statement is, I do have to go, I promised them I’d be there. It’s an important date for my family.”

“Why?” Magnus asked, sitting up as Alec bent to tie his shoes.

“It’s the day Max’s killer was sentenced.”

“Oh.” Was all Magnus said, clearly surprised, but then quietly, as though he was unsure of what he was about to ask, “You’ve never told me how…how Max died…”

Alec stiffened for a second, “No…No I haven’t, it’s not something that…is easy for me to talk about, but…I will tell you, when we have some time, I promise.”

“You don’t have to,” Magnus was quick to reassure, standing quickly and hurrying over to where Alec was standing, “If you don’t want to I completely understand.”

“No, it’s fine, it’s not like you couldn’t look it up on the internet if you wanted, so I appreciated you asking instead. But I really do have to go, so I’ll see you later,” Alec said, bending to give Magnus a quick kiss goodbye, and with that he left.

Dinner with his family was tense, while this was supposed to be a dinner celebrating the swift hand of justice all it did was remind them about Max’s death.

After the dinner is over Alec, Isabelle and Jace head off to the den to hang out for a bit, Alec grabs his book for AP Lit, and his parents split to their separate offices. So much for ‘celebrating’ together Alec thought.

It was a quiet night with his siblings, Jace and Alec played a few rounds of “Call of Duty” while Isabelle painted her nails, and talked to them about the genetics course she was taking this summer (for _fun_ , Alec doesn’t think he’s ever taken a class for fun before). Alec lets them chit chat back and forth, tuning them out in between rounds to focus on his book.

It wasn’t until Isabelle said his name that he started paying close attention.

“Yeah?”

“We were just wondering how Magnus was doing,” Isabelle explained.

“Oh,” Alec felt himself smile, “He’s doing great.”

“Yeah? I’m glad, he seems to make you happy,” Isabelle murmured.

“He…he does. How’s it going with Clary, Jace?” Alec said, because as much as he liked to talk about Magnus he didn’t want to within earshot of his parents.  

Jace smiled, smashing a few buttons on the control and then pausing the game, “She’s doing good, working on her portfolio for art school cause apparently, she’s feeling very inspired right now, which means I get to see her less…but still, I’m glad she’s getting her portfolio together. Although she did say that Simon and Isabelle’s date went _very_ smoothly.”

Isabelle spluttered in surprise and Alec turned to her, “You and Simon? Simon Lewis?”

“Uh, yeah, Meliorn and I were over a few weeks ago, and Jace suggested Simon…so I thought what’s the worst that can happen? It went…really well, I actually like Simon a lot,” Isabelle admitted, blushing a little.

“I hope it works out, if he hurts you, tell me and I’ll help you drown him in the pool,” Alec offers, grinning at his sister. They laugh for a few minutes, and then return to what they were doing before. It’s a nice night, and he hasn’t had one like this with his siblings in a long time. He texts Magnus making plans for lunch the next day at Magnus’ place.

~~~

When he gets to Magnus’ place Alec can feel nerves twist in his stomach, he hates talking about Max, and what happened to him, but he also knows that there is no way around talking about how he died. The subject was bound to come around sometime.

Lunch starts normal enough, it’s nice to see Magnus, even though Alec saw him last night. They eat, and talk about their nights, Alec complains about swim practice and how annoying Sebastian is, while Magnus talks about his diving. It’s nice, even with the conversation about Max looming. Alec wants to stay in this little bubble of perfection for forever.

When Magnus is done talking Alec takes a breath, and prepares himself.

“You asked about Max last night—”

“And I completely understand if you don’t want to talk about it, I’ve gathered that it wasn’t something that is pleasant to relive,” Magnus interrupts.

Alec smiles gratefully, grasping Magnus’ hand across the table, “It isn’t, but you should know. Four years ago, Max was eleven years old, and my dad had just won senate. He took the family out to a dinner to thank all of his donors, you know the usual thing, but I wasn’t there because I had a meet at the time…” Alec paused for a minute, and then continued, “They were walking back to the car when a car pulled up and stuck a gun out the window. They fired at will. My dad took a bullet in the arm, Isabelle was grazed, but everyone else got down fast enough, secret service was there, and were able to stop the shooters. Except…Max wasn’t so lucky, a bullet hit Max right in the chest, and he died on the way to the hospital.”

When Alec stopped talking Magnus was silent.

“I…I don’t even know what to say, Alexander, what happened to your brother…” Magnus trailed off.

“I know; you don’t have to say anything. We caught the guys who did it. Some anti-government extremist group, and they were convicted. Considering the circumstances, it was the best possible outcome.”

“Still,” Magnus said, standing and coming around to Alec’s side of the table, “It was horrible, and it must have been a difficult time for your family. It must still be.”

Alec nodded, and rested his head on Magnus’ shoulder, “Let’s just…watch some TV before I have to go to second swim. Just a forewarning though, I might fall asleep.”

“Perfectly understandable. Before you fall asleep I wanted to ask you if wanted to come to my place Thursday?”

“Mhm, what time?”

“Lunch time, after you’re done working?” Magnus asks.

“Sure, that sounds great, anything special going on?” Alec questions, a little confused as to why Magnus was being so formal.

“Nothing bad, I’m just going to be busy this weekend and next week, so I was just hoping to get some time with you Thursday.”

“Oh,” Alec said, resting his head on Magnus’ chest, “Okay then, yeah, I’ll see you Thursday. What are you going to be doing that you’ll be so busy?”

“Oh, I’ve got a dive meet this weekend, and no, you can’t come because it’s out of state, over in Pennsylvania, and then I have college team things to do next week,” Magnus explained.

“I would come, if I could, you do know that, don’t you?”

Magnus ran a hand through Alec’s hair, “I know, darling, don’t stress about it. I’m really only diving for fun these days anyway.”

“But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t support you, that’s what a boyfriend does, you support me in my swimming…” Alec said, frowning a little.

“Yes, that’s true, but you…work a lot harder on your sport than I do mine, I’m a lot more academically focused these days.”

“Yeah, but I can still support you in both diving and academics, so I don’t know what all the fuss is about,” Alec grumbled.

Laughing Magnus pressed a kiss to Alec’s head, “Okay, I’ll take it. For the record, I support you in swimming and academics too.”

“Good.” Alec said, a small smile on his lips as he settled in for a nap before second practice.

~~~

Thursday rolls around and Alec makes his way up to Magnus’ door, clutching his backpack, he’d been slacking in the AP Lit department and desperately needed to get caught up to Lydia.

Magnus let him in and after a not-so-quick ‘hello’ kiss told him to get comfortable while finished packing, so Alec headed over to the couch and settled in, pulling out his book and the worksheet to go along with it. Scanning the questions Alec sticks the pen in his mouth and starts to flip through the book. He can hear Magnus in the kitchen, and the TV is on some fashion channel, it’s a calming environment and Alec finds it easy to focus on his assignment. Magnus comes in and out, obviously in the middle of something. After a few minutes, he settles himself in the opposite corner of the couch, stretching his feet out to poke at Alec’s thigh.

“What are you doing?” Magnus asks peering over at Alec’s worksheet.

“AP Lit summer homework,” Alec muttered, pen between his teeth.

“Wait...you actually do that?” Magnus splutters, laughing.

“...Yeah?” Alec says, looking at Magnus, his eyebrows furrowed.

“Alec, oh my God, it’s _optional_.”

“Well, yeah, I know, but it helps me keep my writing skills fresh. Plus, it helps me get ahead so when I have to leave for meets that last at least four days I have a strong foundation. The stronger the foundation, the stronger the house, as they say,” Alec rambles, distractedly, tapping the pen against his mouth as he looked at one of the questions.

When Magnus is silent, Alec looks up from his worksheet. Magnus’ teasing smile had vanished, in its place is a softer version, full of fondness and warmth. Alec can feel his face heat up in a blush as Magnus keeps looking at him like that.

“What?” he asks.

“I love you,” Magnus states, keeping his eyes trained on Alec’s.

Alec feels his heart stutter, and he blinks for a moment, before an unbidden smile spreads across his face, the pen falling from his mouth. Those words spread warmth into his chest, and it’s his turn to stare at Magnus for a moment before he responds.

“I love you, too.”

Magnus smiled, and uncurled from the corner, sliding over to where Alec’s stretched out, grabbing his book and worksheet and dumping them on the coffee table before sitting in Alec’s lap. Magnus cups Alec’s neck and kisses him gently. After a few minutes of gentle kissing, Magnus pulls his lips back half a millimeter from Alec’s.

“I love you,” he whispers, his breath ghosting Alec’s lips.

“I love you, too,” Alec responds, gripping Magnus’ hips, pulling him further on top of him and recapturing Magnus’ lips in his own.

~~~

Alec doesn’t see Magnus for the next week, he hadn’t been lying when he said that he would be busy with the meet, and then busy with team stuff, he can barely text Alec back, and despite it not being that long Alec misses Magnus the more he doesn’t see him. Luckily for him, well…not really, there was a swim meet to prepare for and focus on. Alec knew he had a lot hanging in the balance. Mr. Garroway’s email burns a hole in Alec’s pocket, while Sebastian’s stare burns a hole in the back of his head.

Alec does his best to avoid both, and tries to focus on the meet ahead. Maybe there was a way to give both parties what they wanted. But Alec knew it would be useless to hope, because while Sebastian might be fast he won’t be able to beat Alec trying his best. At some point hard work beats talent.

When meet day arrives Alec wakes to a ‘good morning’ text from Magnus, and despite the weight on Alec’s shoulders, he smiles. At least one thing is alright.

**Alec _:_** _Good morning, I love you_

**Magnus:** _I love you, too, and I have a surprise._

**Alec:** _What is it?_

**Magnus:** _You’ll see; I can’t tell you or it would ruin it._

Alec smiles, and starts to get ready for the meet. Only Jace can come this time, as Isabelle had an important study session for the midterm in her genetics course. Jace is unusually awake for this time of day. He starts to talk to Alec from the moment they get in the car.

When there’s a lull in Jace’s chatter Alec turns to him, “What’s going on with you?”

“What do you mean? Nothings ‘going on’ with me, I’m fine,” Jace objects.

Alec frowns at him, “You realize it’s six am, right? You’re never this happy this early.”

“Oh, I’m just…excited for you, man, todays gonna be great for you, I can just feel it, plus I drank like two cups of coffee already.”

“Uh huh, sure,” Alec murmurs skeptically.

Jace keeps chatting until they reach the pool, and when Alec finally separates from him he almost breathes a sigh of relief, but doesn’t, because without Jace’s incessant talking the realities of today creep into his mind.

Somehow Alec goes through warm up and his first event, which he does well in. The 200 free was never his thing, but Hodge believes in well roundedness as a swimmer, so Alec indulges him. After he warms down he has a long time to wait for his next event, which just so happens is with Sebastian. When he gets out of the pool he sits next to Lydia, and they chat, after about twenty minutes Alec pulls on a hoodie and some shorts to help keep warm. It’s then that Jace texts him, asking to meet him in the locker room.

Frowning, Alec agrees and tells Lydia he’d be back. Alec is careful to avoid Sebastian on the way to the locker room.

“Jace?” he calls into the deserted locker room.

“Not quite,” calls a familiar voice from the ‘team locker room.’

“Magnus?” Alec calls excitedly, hurrying forward. When he catches sight of Magnus standing by the lockers he freezes, because Magnus looks beautiful, and the thing is Alec knows he’s barely even _trying_. He’s in cutoff jeans and an orange tank top with a picture of a sun on it, a grey cardigan over it, his hair is swept up in a careless look, which for Magnus means he literally put some gel in and ruffled it a little. His eye makeup is perfectly subtle, dark purple eyeliner and a light shimmery bronze eyeshadow.  He looks like a literal sunrise.

“Hi, darling,” he says, and Alec rushes forward and engulfs him in his arms. He nudges the door to the team locker room shut, and meets Magnus’ lips in a frantic kiss, pushing him up against the lockers. After a minute the kiss slowed, the intensity level coming down. Alec had never felt such a sense of…of _rightness_ outside of the pool before, and it lightened a load that he hadn’t even known he was carrying.

“I thought you had team stuff today?” Alec asked after they broke apart.

Magnus shrugged, “I wanted to surprise you, are you surprised?”

“Very,” Alec chuckled, leaning back down to steal a kiss. He presses Magnus more firmly into the lockers behind him, Magnus’ arms around his neck, his hands buried in Alec’s hair, Alec had one arms wrapped around Magnus’ waist, and the other against the lockers.

“Well, well, well, look who it is. I got to say, Lightwood, I didn’t think you would be this careless,” Sebastian’s voice sounds from behind them.

Alec pulls away from Magnus’ mouth, suddenly, turning to face Sebastian

“What are you doing here, Sebastian?” He asks as he moves away from Magnus and steps forward at an angle, subtly trying to keep Magnus out of Sebastian’s sight, however futile it might be in the end.

“Oh, you know, checking up on my favorite couple. Hey, Magnus, how’s it going?” Sebastian says, craning his neck to look at Magnus.

Alec moves further in front of Magnus, giving up on being subtle and effectively blocking him from Sebastian’s view.

A venomous smile stretched across Sebastian’s face, “How sweet, you’re trying to protect him. You know if you keep being this obvious you’re going to get caught before you’ve fulfilled our deal and then I’ll have no choice but to sit down and chat about—”

Alec is moving forward without even thinking about it, pulling his arm back, ready to punch Sebastian’s smug smile right off his face, where they are and who they are with flying out of his brain, all he can focus on is shutting Sebastian up. Only Alec feels a hand grab his arm, and hold him back. Magnus.

“Alec, stop!” Magnus snaps from behind him, clutching his arm in a death gripe.

“Oh look, the little fairy is trying to help his—oh, excuse me, I meant _her_ , boyfriend,” Sebastian drawls, looking Magnus up and down, an expression of disgust on his face, and if Alec had been trying to punch Sebastian before, now he was trying even harder, but Magnus had a solid grip on him.

“Don’t you talk to him like that you disgusting motherfucker,” he spat at Sebastian, but Sebastian just smirked and turned his gaze back to Magnus.

“I’m surprised they even let you in this locker room, I thought this was a respectable establishment.”

Magnus’ hand drops from Alec’s arm, moving before Alec can even comprehend what was happening and kneeing Sebastian in the groin. As Sebastian begins to fall to the ground Magnus grips his neck and shoves him back against a locker.

“Don’t you ever say anything like that again, do you understand me?” Magnus release Sebastian's neck and he immediately drops down, clutching his dick, “Come on, Alec, let’s go.”

Alec follows Magnus out into the regular locker room, shutting the door on Sebastian behind him. Anger is bubbling inside of him so fiercely his hands are shaking. When Magnus stops Alec immediately moves into his space.

“Are you okay? I’m so sorry, what he said…” Alec started but he doesn’t know how to finish the sentence, and Magnus doesn’t seem to be paying attention to him either. Reaching up a hand, Alec touches his cheek, “Magnus?”

Magnus blinks and looks at Alec, “I…who was that, Alec?”

“That…was Sebastian,” Alec answered, “He’s on my team…”

Just as Alec’s about to respond both their phones chime. It’s Jace, telling them that Alec needs to go warm up.

“Is something going on between the two of you?” Magnus asked, as Alec got ready to go.

“I really can’t talk about it, Magnus, I’m sorry, normally I would…but I really need to go.”

Magnus sighed, “Alright, good luck out there. I love you.”

Alec glanced around quickly and, in seeing no one, ducked to give Magnus a quick kiss, “I love you, too, and…thank you,” because unknowingly Magnus had just prevented Sebastian from racing in his race, with a kick to the groin like that it would take Sebastian longer than he had to recover.

Alec heads out and starts to warm up, Sebastian’s words flying through his head. God, he wishes Magnus had let him punch him, even if Magnus had kicked him in the groin he still wanted to punch him.

Alec got to the back of the lane, shaking out his arms and legs. He was no longer that nervous, Sebastian was nowhere to be seen, which meant that Alec could swim however well he wanted. But while he might not be nervous, he was sure as hell angry, and he was going to use that to his advantage. Alec was going to get that Nationals cut, no matter what.

Alec dove into the water, his body cutting through the water. He had always loved the 400 IM, it kept him on his toes, you couldn’t get too comfortable with one stoke because in four lengths you’d have to switch. Alec pulled ahead easily, letting his anger and desire for revenge push him forward. Eight lengths in he was leading the race by half a length.  His stroke wasn’t as smooth as it normally was, instead it was rough and angry. He had started out to fast, and by the time he hit the third lap of breaststroke he was starting to fade faster than he normally did. His stroke continued to be choppy, and angry, but Alec pushed through. There was no way he wasn’t getting that cut.

When he hit freestyle he breathed every other stroke, despite knowing that holding his breath would be a smarter strategy. Not only was he breathing way too much, he was also shorting his rotation. It was by far one of his most uneven strokes.  

But it didn’t seem to matter because when Alec hit the wall, the time on the scoreboard was four seconds under the Nationals cut. That was the time he had spent all year preparing for, and it wasn’t even his best stroke.

Alec was going to Nationals for his favorite event. Grinning he spotted Magnus in the stands, clapping. His smile was slightly subdued, but still proud, Alec didn’t blame him for that after the confrontation he had just had. Trying to push what Sebastian had said to Magnus out of his head for the time being Alec clambered out of the pool and headed over to where Hodge was grinning.

When Alec got over to Hodge, Hodge clapped him on the shoulder, shaking him a little, “Congratulations, you going to Nationals! That was a great race, Alec. Your strokes were a little rough, and I think that slowed you down, but we can work on that. And you started out a little too fast, so we need to work on your pacing. But, barring anything like that, you should be set up nicely for the Olympic trials cut.”

“Thanks, Hodge, it felt really good, if a little choppy,” Alec said, smiling a little and ruffling a hand through his hair, excitement coursing through him at the prospect of going to the Olympic trials.

“Good, now, do you know where Sebastian is?”

“Mm, no, can’t say I do. I noticed he missed his event,” Alec lied, faking concern, stomach dropping at the mention of Sebastian. He hadn’t stayed out of his mind for long.

“Whatever, I’ll find him later, go warm down and prepare for your next event, and again, great job, Alec.”

Alec nodded and headed off.

Overall Alec supposed the meet went well, but all he really wanted to do was go find Magnus. While his races had gone well, the adrenalin had worn off, and he was distracted worrying. Those things that Sebastian had said…there were no words to describe how appalling they had been. Not to mention the way Magnus had responded…while kneeing him in the balls meant that Alec hadn’t had to worry about him during the race Alec knew that it was going to have consequences. He just didn’t know what.

When the meet was finally done, Alec got dressed and headed to meet Magnus and Jace.

“Hey, man, good job today, but I got to head out. Normally I would go get burgers with you and everything, but it’s Clary’ opening night, plus it’s her first gallery, so I gotta be there,” Jace explained, pulling Alec into a hug, “Congrats on the Nationals cut, super proud of you.”

“Thanks, man, have fun at the gallery, I’ll see you at home,” Alec replied, hugging Jace back tightly. Jace left, leaving Alec and Magnus alone.

“Do you want to get dinner?” Alec asked.

“Sure, have any place in mind?” Magnus replied, as they started toward the parking lot.

“Uh, yeah actually, it’s a locally run place, Resette, and it’s beautiful. The building was actually an old church that was remodeled into a restaurant by this family a hundred years ago,” Alec explained, rambling a little, “It must have cost a fortune, but it’s so worth it. They kept all the stained-glass windows, and the architecture is…” Alec paused for a second, then decided to go for broke, it couldn’t hurt after what had happened, “Almost as beautiful as you.”

Magnus took a second, before he let out a small laugh, “Alexander, are you flirting with me?”

Alec smiled, bashfully, “Just telling it as it is.”

They walked the rest of the way in silence and Alec plugged the address into the GPS in Magnus’ car. It was quiet for a bit while Magnus got out of the parking lot and onto the road.

“You did well today, according to Jace that was a big cut you got,” Magnus said.

“Yeah, it was. The 200 IM and the 400 IM are my best events, so going to Nationals for them is great. I’m really excited for it; the meet last year was awesome. But you know swimming, the times get faster each year, I’m glad I was able to keep up.”

Magnus smiled, and reached over to grab Alec’s hand, “Of course you got it, you’re hard working and dedicated.”

“Thanks, Magnus, it was really nice of you to come tonight. I know that what happened was bad…and I’m really sorry about that.”

Magnus’ eyebrows furrowed, “Alec, why are you apologizing? It wasn’t your fault he said those things, that was all on him.”

“Yeah, but—”

“No. No ‘but,’ it was all his fault. That’s that, okay?”

Alec sighed, “Okay. I love you.”

Magnus smiled, albeit tightly, and looked over at Alec, “I love you, too, darling.”

When Magnus stopped at a red-light Alec leaned over the console and kissed him quickly before settling back in his seat. It took them another ten minutes to get to the restaurant, and Magnus dropped Alec off at the door before he went to find a parking spot. Alec approached to hostess, thankful that it was still early for dinner.

“Welcome to Resette, how many?” the hostess said, smiling widely. Alec’s phone chimed before he could answer and his eyes widened as he read the text.

**_From Sebastian:_** _You’re in for it now, Lightwood. Actions have consequences._

It took Alec a moment to reply to the waitress, “Uh, two, please,” and then after a second he added, “And can we be in the back?”

“Of course, will she be in in a moment?”

“Oh, um, yeah, h—they’re just parking the car,” he told her, glancing around.

“Oh, of course, then, follow me,” she led him towards the back, and placed him in a corner booth, perfectly secluded.

“Thank you very much, this is perfect,” Alec said, sitting down.

The hostess smiled and nodded, before heading off. It wasn’t long before Magnus entered the restaurant, glancing around, Alec raised a hand, smiling. Magnus spotted him quickly and headed towards him.

“What got us stuck back here?” Magnus asked as he sat down.

Alec shrugged, “I asked for something more private.”

“Oh, well, then she did a good job,” Magnus said, the smile sliding of his face to be replaced by an expression that Alec couldn’t quite read.

“Did you…want to move?” Alec asked, worried.

Magnus sighed, “No, Alec this is fine.” With that Magnus opened the menu, clearly ready to move on. Alec blinked, a little thrown at Magnus’ sudden coolness, but picked up the menu and started looking nonetheless, Magnus didn’t say anything after that, so Alec scrambled for a topic, the silence was starting to become thick, and uncomfortable.

“Their pastas are really good,” Alec commented, a little desperately, as he glanced down the menu, he already knew what he wanted, but it was something to do with his hands. It took a while but the waiter finally came around, and neither of them broke the silence that had fallen.

“Hi, sorry for the delay, there was a mishap in the kitchen. My name is Aaron, and I’ll be taking care of you tonight, would you guys like to start with anything to drink?”

“Just water for me, please,” Alec said, glancing at Magnus.

“I’ll have the same, thank you.”

“Okay, I’ll be back with those in just a minute,” Aaron said, smiling cheerfully before walking away. It seemed as though Magnus was done with the menu after a minute, since he set it down.

“How was team building?” Alec asked, trying once again, to break the heaviness that seemed to be lingering. He could tell he was on very thin ice with Magnus after the locker room and what had just happened with seating.

“It was good, the team next year should be really well rounded. We have a great incoming class of freshman, and a strong senior base, so we should be pretty balanced these next few years.”

“Good, good, I’m glad,” Alec said, and he was just about to say something else when Aaron came back with their waters.

“Here you are, sirs, are you guys ready to order?” he asked, pulling out his notepad.

“Uh, I am, Magnus?” Alec said.

“Yeah, I’ll have the spaghetti and meatballs, please,” Magnus told Aaron.

When Aaron turned to look at him Alec said, “I’ll have the chicken alfredo, Aaron, thank you.”

Aaron grabbed their menus and shuffled off to go put their orders in. Magnus and Alec were quiet for a minute.

“How was your week, Alec?” Magnus asked finally, his smile tight.

“Oh, it was alright…I missed you,” Alec admitted and it was true. Alec had found himself wishing Magnus was there quite a lot this past week, even just to tell him about something stupid Simon had done at swim practice.

Magnus’ smiled loosened at the admission, though a tightness remained around the corners of his mouth and Alec wanted nothing more than to lean across the counter and kiss it away. “I missed you, too, Alexander.”

Alec returns his smile, before asking what had been nagging at him for ages, “Why do you call me ‘Alexander’ when everyone just calls me ‘Alec?’” he asks, tearing the napkin into pieces and not looking at Magnus.

He hears Magnus sigh, and looks up to see a fond smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, despite Magnus’ best efforts, “You know what Alexander means right? ‘Defender of men’ and all that. Even…before I knew you this well, I knew you would do anything to defend your family, and those you loved. You were the very definition of ‘Alexander.’ Not to mention you’ve never been just...Alec to me. You were always more.”

Alec feels his heart beat stutter for a minute, and he looks up at Magnus, he’s about to say something, but Magnus apparently wasn’t done, and he keeps talking.

“But lately…I…it feels as though you’re ashamed of me, more often than not—”

“Magnus, what? Of course not! What’s made you think that?”  Alec asks, alarmed.

“It’s…look where we are, Alec,” Magnus laughed bitterly, waving a hand around, “This is really the first date we’ve been on that has been outside of my apartment after the fourth date. And we’re tucked all the way in the corner. If we are out in public you’re always looking around…it’s not hard to put the pieces together,” he explained, gesturing to the entire restaurant.

“Magnus…that’s not—I’m not ashamed of you! We just can’t be open about anything. I…I told you that going in, so I’m not really sure what you were expecting?” Alec says, more confused than anything.

“I know, we have to be out of the public eye. But, Alec, you said yourself that the paparazzi don’t pay attention to you, so I don’t understand why you’re acting so secretive all of a sudden. Our first three dates were out in the open, we kissed in public before, and I know those places were pretty discreet…So I…I guess I’m just confused as to what happened.”

Aaron was back with their plates, so Alec waited until he left before he replied, “Nothing happened, Magnus, I love you, I could never be ashamed of you.”

Magnus shook his head, “Something happened after our third date, something you’re not telling me. Maybe I was stupid to not notice it until now.”

“You aren’t stupid, Magnus, I…” Alec sighed, and gave in, “Fine. After our fourth date, I found out someone had seen us, and so…I’ve just been trying to be more careful, is all. There’s just a lot at stake with my family, and all, and I decided it would probably be best to be a bit more discreet. It had nothing to do with you.”

“Does this have something to do with what happened with Sebastian earlier?” Magnus asked.

Alec paused, “No,” he lied, “It’s not really important. I promise you though, I’ll try and stop being so paranoid. I guess it is a little over cautious on my part.”

Magnus frowned as though he wanted to keep prying, but thankfully he must decide that it isn’t worth pushing, and so all he says is “Thank you, Alexander, I appreciate it.”

The rest of the meal was spent talking about lighter things, Isabelle and Simon’s relationship, how Lochte was doing, and the fact that Alec’s parents were going to a conference for two weeks in July, and going to be home a lot less than normal. But Alec could detect an underlying current of tension, that both were carrying, and he just wanted it to _go away_.

After dinner Magnus drove Alec home, and when he saw that neither of his parents were home yet, and they were secure behind the gate, Alec leaned across the console and cupped Magnus’ face, kissing him for all he was worth. Trying to erase everything that had happened that day with his lips.

“I love you,” Alec told him as he pulled away.

But Magnus grabbed his shirt before he had fully pulled away, and jerked him back in for another kiss, this one rougher, more angry than the last one. There was a lot more teeth involved. When they finally broke apart for air Magnus rested his forehead against Alec’s and said, his voice uneven, “I love you, too.”

When Alec walked into the house he felt unease prickle at the back of his mind. Unable to go to bed yet, he headed into the den. Jace was there, reading a book with the TV playing in the background.

“Hey, man, what’s up?” He asked when Alec collapsed next to him on the couch.

Alec shrugged, “Nothing much, just got back from dinner, how was the art gallery?”

“It was good, Clary’s pieces were beautiful, she had this one amazing abstract piece, and I’m not much of an abstract guy, but she did something to this one, I swear. I couldn’t stop looking at it, you would like it.”

“Is the gallery open again, or was this the only day?” Alec asked.

“She has another opening in a month or two, but this was the only one for this month.”

“I’ll come to the next one if I can, text me the details?” Clary wasn’t Alec’s favorite person in the world, but Jace was so smitten with her Alec wanted to at least give her a shot, and anyway, an art gallery sounded like something Magnus would like.

“Sure, how was dinner with Magnus?” Jace asked.

“It was good…” Alec answered, evasively.

“You alright?”

“Yeah? Why wouldn’t I be?”

“It’s just…I don’t know, you’re normally happier after a date with Magnus, and I would’ve thought after everything that happened today you two would’ve had a really great night…You just seem off,” Jace explained.

“Well, we went to Resette, you know that Italian place I like,” When Jace nodded Alec continued, “We got there and Magnus dropped me off to go get a table while he parked the car—”

“—Classic married couple,” Jace teased, and Alec rolled his eyes.

“Anyway, so I ask for a table in the back, a little more private, because—Well. It doesn’t matter, and when Magnus noticed…He wasn’t all that happy about it.” Alec finished, leaving Sebastian out of it, that would only lead to more questions that he didn’t want to answer.

Jace frowned for a moment, “Have you thought about coming out?”

Alec froze, and Jace, seeing his reaction quickly started to backtrack, “I mean you don’t have to, it’s perfectly understandable that you wouldn’t want to, I just…”

“It’s fine, Jace,” Alec sighed, “I have thought about it, but I don’t know…it’s…complicated.” That was true enough, before Magnus he hadn’t really considered it. There was no point in coming out to his parents or the rest of the world if there was no one at his side, but then his father had started taking heavy, anti-gay, positions and the world had seemed suddenly more hostile, especially after Sebastian. Now…now Alec was just scared.

“It’s…it’s only been recently that dad has started to take more…negative views on LGBT+ rights, and…that really opened my eyes to how,” Alec faltered, unsure of how to continue, “…Unsympathetic, the rest of the world is….I don’t want to…to expose you and Izzy….and Magnus to that kind of scrutiny.”

Jace nodded his head in understanding, “But hasn’t Magnus already faced that kind of scrutiny? I mean, you know who his dad is, plus he was out all through high school, and I’m sure college as well.”

“Yeah, but…it’s not the same, his father might be the CEO of a big business, but that’s not the same kind of attention as he would get from a bunch of right wing, homophobic news sights. The business world…well, it’s a different animal than the political one.”

“Okay, that makes some sense. But why are you worried about Izzy and I?” Jace asked, his book now completely shut, and the TV muted, “It’s you that’s coming out, you would face the harder obstacles.”

“Well,” Alec bit his lip, “It’s hard to explain…”

“Then try,” Jace encouraged.

“I’m worried that it’s…it’s all you’ll be known for, I just…It’s my ‘problem’ or whatever you want to call it,” he put a hand up to stop Jace from interrupting, “I know it’s not a problem, I just…can’t find another word for it. Anyway, it’s my…thing, and I don’t want it to affect you, but I know it undoubtedly will. Not to mention how it will affect mom and dad…it’s just…I don’t know.” Alec sighed, and rested his chin on his hand.

“First of all, who cares about mom and dad? They brought this on themselves, that shouldn’t be part of your decision-making process. This should be about _you_ , and partly about Magnus, not about your family unless it’s a life or death situation, which it’s not,” Jace paused for a second before continuing, “Lastly, I can guarantee you neither Izzy nor I have any problems with you coming out, Alec. Both of us are okay with handling the media circus for a bit, I want to make that very clear. We are both 1000% supportive of you choosing to come out. We also will support you if you decided to never come out—we’ll make sure that’s what you really want, but if it is, we’ll be completely on board with that plan. Okay?”

Alec stared at Jace for a moment, overwhelmed by the sincerity behind his speech. Never had Jace ever talked to him like this, with such openness and such support.

“Okay, Alec?” Jace asked again, when Alec didn’t reply.

Alec blinked, “Okay.” 

~~~

 

The next few days pass peacefully for Alec and Magnus. Sebastian, it seemed, was biding his time, he was back to just shooting glares at Alec’s back, and Alec let his threat fade to the back of him mind. As Nationals wasn’t until the second week in August, Hodge was pushing them hard through the first few weeks of July. They wouldn’t start tapering until the last week. Each day all Alec wanted to do was sleep after practice, but he somehow was able to keep pushing. It was routine now that Alec would go over to Magnus’ place for lunch every other day or so, sometimes they ate in, but other times they walked around the city.

When Alec’s parents left for the second week in July Alec and Magnus migrated to Alec’s house for dinner, both with Jace and Izzy and their significant others, and without. Alec’s favorite parts by far was when Magnus would walk Lochte with him at night, and then just…stay the night. It was nice to fall asleep with Magnus and wake up with him in the morning. (They did have one close call when Alec’s dad had come home unannounced one morning because he had needed a file, but luckily Robert hadn’t come to check on his son.)

On a Tuesday night Alec finally managed to drag Magnus out to his and his sibling’s favorite karaoke bar. Alec had casually mentioned it to both his siblings, and somehow it had snowballed into an evening with both his friends and Magnus’ friends…not that Magnus knew that. (Alec had chickened out when he had tried to tell him, so he decided to let it be a surprise.)

When they arrived at the bar Alec craned his neck and caught sight of Clary’s red hair easily, and Jace’s blond hair. They were over in a corner and pulled two tables together to try and accommodate all of their friends.

“Come on, this way,” Alec says to Magnus, gripping his hand and pulling him along to the tables their friends occupied.

“Alec…” Magnus starts as he catch’s sight of everyone surrounding the table, “What did you do?”

“Okay. Well. I just want to say that this isn’t my fault,” Alec starts, but quickly gets back on track after Magnus pins him with a hard, unimpressed stare, “Never mind, see, I told Izzy and Jace, right? Then those two blabber mouths told their significant others, at least Jace told Clary, either Clary or Isabelle told Simon, I’m not really sure which, but it could’ve been either. Simon mentioned it to Lydia. And, apparently, Simon also knows Raphael—”

“We were swim siblings,” Simon chimes in, “Back when Raphael was still in high school and on the Idris Dive team, it was great, and we’ve kept in touch. Raphael was always complaining about a Magnus, and I didn’t put two and two together until recently.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Alec said, rolling his eyes at Simon, “Then Raphael told Cat and Ragnor, and then convinced everyone to come tonight…and at that point I couldn’t really stop it.” Alec finished.

“None of us could resist the opportunity to see you embarrass yourself,” Raphael calls, smirking widely.

Magnus sniffs a little, tipping his chin up as he shoots a sharp look at Raphael, “I resent the implication that my singing is anything less than perfect.”

Alec smiled a little, Magnus, while surprised, didn’t seem overly angry, so Alec pulled out a chair for him, and kissed his cheek as he sat down. Alec was quick to sit down beside his.

“Don’t think you’re going to get away with this,” Magnus whispers in his ear, “You know that spicy restaurant that you don’t want to go to? We’re so going and I’m going to order for you and film you while you eat it, and then posting it, _everywhere_.”

Alec gulped a little, but shrugged, “This should be fun, Magnus, and it’s not like you’re going to be the only person singing tonight.”

Magnus turns to look at him, “Are you going to be singing?”

Alec blushes and ducks his head, “Well…I mean, I wasn’t going to let you do it by yourself, I’m not that cruel.”

“Alexander…” Magnus says, his surprised expression morphing into an incredibly fond look, “You’re always surprising me.”

Alec’s blush intensified and he was respond when Jace called from the other end of the table, “Yeah, and he’s gonna surprise you again with the song he picked.”

Magnus looked at Alec questioningly, Alec put up his hands, “This really wasn’t my fault, I swear,” He started, only to be pinned with unimpressed stares from everyone, “Honestly, I told Izzy what I wanted you to sing, and then she told Raphael when they were planning this and they ganged up on me. I had no choice.”

Magnus narrowed his eyes, turning to look at Isabelle and Raphael respectively, “What am I singing?”

Isabelle’s smile was pure evil, and Raphael wore a matching smirk.

“‘Wannabe’ by Spice Girls,” Isabelle answered, and Magnus put his head on the table and groaned.

“Don’t worry, Alec’s going to sing it with you,” Cat said from where she had been watching things play out.

“What?” Alec spluttered, “I said I’d sing a song with him, not this one!”  

“Oh, you have no choice, darling, come on, let’s get this over with,” Magnus said, resignedly, standing from his chair, and tugging Alec along with him.

“For the record, this was never my plan,” Alec grumbled behind him, and when they reached a more secluded area, Magnus turned to him and backed him up against the wall.

“I know, darling, but they’re our friends, and we love them,” Magnus reminded him, before leaning up and pecking Alec’s lips.

“Hm, for the life of me I can’t remember why,” Alec said, laughing into Magnus’ mouth before kissing him again. The wet slide of Magnus’ lips and his warm, sinful tongue was enough to distract Alec until something hit him in the side of the face.

Pulling back from Magnus abruptly he looked around to see their friends staring at them, Jace made a shooing motion, and Alec sighed.

“I guess that’s our cue, come on,’ Alec said, pulling Magnus by the hand and entering their names into the computer for next.

(And if they entered all their other friends and their least favorite songs in, then no one had to know.)

(All in all, it was a great night.)

~~~

“What the hell is this?” is the first thing Alec hears when he walks into the house after swim practice on Thursday evening. He had originally planned on hanging out with Magnus for a while, but then Magnus had had a friend emergency of some sort, something about Raphael and Simon having an argument and Magnus needing to play mediator.

Alec blinked in surprise as his father shot out of his study and flew like a bat from hell towards Alec brandishing some pieces of paper at him. His father wasn’t supposed to be back from the conference for another few days.

“What is what?” he asked, understandably confused.

“This,” his father shoved the papers at him, and Alec caught them.

Looking down at them Alec shuffled to get them in order, and then froze when he saw the pictures that accompanied the headline. It was a picture of him and Magnus, on their third date to the bowling alley, and a more recent shot of them singing karaoke, both pictures were relatively innocent. Wondering what his father was so angry about he quickly started to skim the article.

 

**_Unraveling the Mysteries of Alec Lightwood_ **

**_By Laura Westmeyer_ **

_A photo can tell a thousand words, as they say, and this photo does not disappoint. At 8’o’clock pm Monday night an anonyms source leaked this photo here, to TMZ, of Alexander Lightwood. If you are unfamiliar with Alec Lightwood, here are a few things to jog your memory, Lightwood is the eldest son of Senator Robert Lightwood. His younger sister Isabelle is often feature in the TMZ fashion section. Lightwood is usually only ever talked about in relation to the USSA community as an up and coming swimmer, with high hopes of going to the 2020 Olympics._

_It now appears we have a reason for the eldest Lightwood to remain out of the spotlight. It seems to us that Lightwood might not be as straight and narrow as we once assumed. In this photo he is seen to be rather close to one Magnus Bane, son of the CEO of Private Correction Facilities Corporation (PCFC)._

_It’s well known that after the prosecution of the gunman that shot and killed the youngest Lightwood four years ago (and if you don’t know about that then what rock are you living under?) the Lightwood and Bane families clashed after the assailant was sentence to remain at a PCFC penitentiary until his appointment with Dr. Death. To this day neither family has seemed to like one another, and Senator Lightwood makes a point to condemn PCFC for its business practices, indirectly, of course, while Bane pledges continued support to Sen. Lightwood’s longtime rival._

_Is this a forbidden bromance? A new spin on forbidden romance, but in a friendly way? Has the eldest sons put the past in the past and tried to keep it from their parents?_

_Have Magnus and Alec been friends for years or are they trying to reconcile? I don’t know about you, but I don’t look at a new friend like that! Tell us in the comments below!_

Alec felt his stomach twist in an unpleasant combination of disgust and anxiety. The article didn’t confirm anything; it didn’t even mention Alec and Magnus being in a relationship, but it did reveal why his father so angry. Sebastian must have known Alec and Magnus’ fathers didn’t get along, something neither of them had known, and jumped on that opportunity. Alec had known that Magnus’ father was the CEO of a private prison company but he had never connected the dots. He had taken what Magnus had said about his family at face value. 

Alec had to hand it to Sebastian, this was smart. By not revealing Alec and Magnus’ real relationship status he was still able to continue his original blackmail plot against Alec, but at the same time enforce he was serious, and had physical proof.

As Alec looked at the photo he could place the exact moment when the bowling alley photo had been taken, Magnus had just made a joke, a rather inappropriate one, about how Alec’s ass had looked as he threw the ball, and Alec had just finished laughing. The one from the karaoke bar was harder to place, but Alec guessed it was after their first duet, based on their flushed faces.

“What is that?” His father repeated, jolting Alec back to reality.

Swallowing Alec cleared his throat, “Some pictures.”

“Don’t get smart with me, boy,” his father snarled, “Why are you hanging out with that fairy?”

“Magnus and I are friends,” Alec said, weakly.

His father snorts, “You have no business associating with someone like that—”

“—Someone like what?” Alec interrupted.

“An abomination. He’s a sinner, and everything to be ashamed about in a human. You know how you hanging out with someone like that could affect my campaign. My voters don’t want to think I support something as wrong, and disgusting as homosexuality. Not to mention his father. How could you be friends with the son of the man who showed leniency to your brother’s killer?”

Alec felt his stomach twist, “He’s just a friend dad. His father’s decisions are not his own. And how was I supposed to know about his father? No one mentioned that to me, Magnus and I don’t really talk a lot about our parents.”

“It doesn’t matter, you shouldn’t be friends with him, regardless. At least consider your mother and I, and how this would negatively affect us. An acceptance of the Bane family, in all its flaws could hurt both of our career paths greatly…think about it, Alec. Something like this could really hurt your siblings, your family.”

With that he turned and left, leaving Alec standing in the entryway, staring after him. Alec wanted to be angry at how he had talked about Magnus and the LGBT+ community, but he just felt numb. His father had just inflated his insecurities on the effect his coming out would have on his family, unknowingly or not. He turned and headed up the stairs to his room, where he found Lochte lying next to his bead, chewing on his bone. Alec moved over to his and settled on the ground next to him. Lochte paused in chewing his bone to look at Alec. He shuffled a little closer and rested his head on Alec’s thigh before going back to his bone.

Alec smiled a little, his eyes watery, and he rested a hand on Lochte’s head. It was only then that he realized his was shaking rather violently. Alec leaned his head back on the bed and closed his eyes. He was so screwed. Sebastian may not have outed him, but he had certainly laid the foundation for it.

After an hour or two, he stood. He let Lochte out of his room and flopped right onto his bed. Reaching over he grabbed his phone and texted Isabelle asking her to feed and run Lochte and then turning it onto ‘Do Not Disturb’ he set his alarm for Wednesday, a little earlier than normal because he hadn’t gotten his stuff ready, and rolled over to go to sleep.

The next morning he gets out of bed and when he looks at his phone there at least ten texts from Magnus, Lydia, Isabelle and Jace. He sighs and scrolls through them. Jace and Isabelle were worried, then furious, and then indignant, Lydia was confused. But Magnus…at first his texts were similar to the other three, but after the third unanswered text message he had just told Alec to come to his apartment after work.

Alec sighed, and considered not going, in fact he considered holing himself up in his room and not going to anything at all, he wasn’t sure if swim practice would make him feel better or worse. Not only would Sebastian bee there, but Lydia would be asking questions. But Alec refused to let this one article, that might not even be all that popular, that wasn’t that incriminating, beat him. He was better than that, so he pulled himself out of bed and started to get ready.

When he went downstairs he was not prepared for Isabelle and Jace to be sitting at the kitchen table, waiting for him.

“What are you guys doing up? It’s five in the morning,” he said tiredly as he grabbed an apple and washed it, “Where’s Lochte?”

“He’s outside, Jace let him out,” Isabelle said, “And we wanted to make sure you were alright, we heard what happened, and we saw the article.”

Alec shrugged, “What about it?”

“Come on, Alec, don’t play dumb, it’s too early,” Jace snapped, rolling his eyes from where he sat next to Isabelle, “The article about you and Magnus that TMZ printed yesterday.”

“Oh, that’s no big deal, it wasn’t like they circled my head and wrote ‘HE’S GAY.’ They just speculated about me being friends with him, despite our parent’s apparent feud.”

“But still, what happened with dad…are you sure you’re okay?” Isabelle asked again, standing and walking over to Alec. 

“Yeah, I’m fine. Dad doesn’t know anything. He’s just angry that I’m friends with a ‘homosexual,’” Alec dismissed, moving to throw his apple core out and let Lochte back in, then feeding him.

“Are you really okay, Alec? You seemed pretty upset last night,” Jace pressed.

Alec sighed, annoyed “I was angry and upset last night, and I wanted some alone time. But, I’m fine now, alright? I have to get to swim practice. I’ll see you later.”

Alec headed out the door. At swim practice Sebastian was all smug grins and snide comments, and the only thing stopping Alec from punching his was his team around him. If he and Sebastian had been alone…well, Sebastian’s nose certainly wouldn’t be straight anymore.

When swim practice was done, Lydia cornered him as the rest of the team headed for the locker rooms, “You never answered my texts,” she accused.

“Sorry, I was busy,” Alec said, lamely.

Lydia’s brow furrowed, “I saw the article, how did that even get out?”

“Seb—” Alec started to say before he cut himself off, but it was useless, Lydia perked up.

“Sebastian?”

“No, I just—” Alec started to defend, but Lydia cut him off.

“You were definitely about to say Sebastian? What does he have to do with any of this?” Lydia pressed.

“I misspoke,” Alec said, trying to move past her, but Lydia grabbed his arm and jerked him back, “Ow, that hurt.”

“Oh, come on, that was nothing. You’re lying to me, you didn’t misspeak, something is going on with you and Sebastian.”

Alec sighed, defeated, “Can we change, before I get into it, it’s sort of a long story.”

“Fine, but you are telling me, Lightwood,” Lydia said, poking him in the chest.

“Ouch, again,” he complained, she poked _hard_ , “Yeah, I’ll tell you, cross my heart and everything,” Alec said, rolling his eyes, trying to pull off the some…nonchalance.

“We’ll go get coffee instead of working out. If you even think about skipping out, bad things will happen,” she threatened, pointing the same finger she had poked him with at him.

He raised his hands in surrender and backed away. He was quick to get dressed, expectedly avoiding Sebastian, and when he was done he went out to meet Lydia. They headed over to a local coffee shop only a few doors down from the pool.

After they had gotten their coffee and sat down Lydia looked at him, “So what’s going on with you and Sebastian?”

Alec sighed, looking down at his coffee, “You know Magnus and I are dating, right?”

“I mean, you never explicitly told me, but yeah, I had thought you might be. That article basically confirmed what I thought.”

“Well, Sebastian caught us, on our third date, and took pictures. I didn’t know this until right before the Counties meet, but the Friday before he cornered me in the locker room. He threatened to release pictures of Magnus and I if I didn’t let him win, or beat me in a few races. At that point I couldn’t risk him outing Magnus and I…So I’ve been letting him win.”

“Alec…” Lydia started, eyes full of concern, “Why wouldn’t you report him?”

Alec shook his head, “I couldn’t risk him releasing the photos. Letting him win has been the only way of keeping him off my back…and it was going fine until…”

“Until?” Lydia prompted, wrapping her hands more firmly around her coffee cup.

 “Until, the last meet. Sebastian caught Magnus and I in the locker room, we were being reckless, and walked in on us…He said some…horrible things and Magnus kicked him in the balls. That’s why he missed his event, and I swam so choppily.”

“I would’ve paid to see Magnus kick him in the balls though,” Lydia said, smiling wryly, and taking a sip of coffee.

“It was pretty great,” Alec confirmed, letting himself remember the look on Sebastian’s face, a small smiling tugging at his lips before it dropped, and he continued, “But, it pissed Sebastian off. So, he released the photos of Magnus and I. Luckily neither of the ones he released was one of the incriminating ones. The first one can easily be seen as hanging out, and we’re clearly with other people in the karaoke bar. So the general population doesn’t suspect anything, but my dad was angry that I had been seen with, in his words, ‘someone like Magnus.’”

“Is he just angry because Magnus isn’t straight, or is it something else? The article mentioned Magnus’ dad and your dad didn’t get along.”

“Honestly, I didn’t know about our parents. I doubt Magnus did either, he’s not exactly tight with his dad, they haven’t really talked in years, and Magnus doesn’t keep up with his business practice as far as I know. But the relationship between our parents probably had something to do with why my dad was angry. It was probably a combination of the embarrassment that his son was hanging out with the son of his ‘worst enemy’ and the fact that Magnus is bisexual. He’s worried about the message that sends to voters.”

Lydia took a second while she processed the information, before she asked, “I know this might be a stupid question, but why haven’t you just come out? It would certainly get Sebastian off your back, and it might shut your father up.”

“It would, but I can’t help thinking about the effect it would have on my parents, you know? Like, if my coming out only affected me, then I would be happy to do it, but it doesn’t. Even my siblings would be affected.”

“This might be a stupid reason, but why do you care about your parents and their careers? I mean, I understand the siblings, to extent—but we’ll come back to that later—Your parents don’t really deserve your protection.”

Alec shrugged, “They’re my family, I love them and I want to protect them.”

“I get that, I really do, but are you planning on hiding your entire life? That’s what would be happening, your fathers voting base isn’t going to change anytime soon.”

“No, I guess you’re right…”

Neither talked for a minute, and Alec sipped his coffee as he watch a few pedestrians pass by.

“You mentioned your siblings?” Lydia promted, and Alec snapped back to the conversation.

“Yeah, but they aren’t…so much of an issue. I talked to Jace a week or so ago and he reassured me that neither him, nor Isabelle would care if they took some negative attention for that. He told me they were fine dealing with it, that it was a small price to pay.”

Lydia smiled, “I knew there was a reason I liked Jace.”

Alec laughed, “Yeah, he hides it sometimes, but he can be really…supportive.”

“So, your siblings support you, and you’ve realized you can’t base your timeline on your parents? What else is stopping you?” Lydia asked, curiously.

“It used to be the public reaction, what people would say, and that really scared me…I think it still does…but that pales in comparison to…to I guess, habit.” Alec said, quietly, staring down at his coffee, “I just…for so long I’ve been hiding, and I know you know what that’s like, and so it’s hard for me to consider not hiding it…I almost can’t imagine a world we’re I’m free…to—to hold Magnus’ hand and not worry about cameras.”

“I do know what that’s like, in a way. John and I’s have been hiding our relationship for so long that when I think about college and being out in the open, it scares me as much as it excites me,” Lydia admits.

“Why are you and John waiting anyway?” Alec asks.

“Because it’d be easier to be open in college, when my parents have less of a grip on me, and I’m not living with them. If our situations were similar I’d encourage you to wait until college, if that’s what you wanted, but with Sebastian, I just think it’d be easier now.”

Alec nods, deep in thought, “I guess that makes sense, and it’s not like my dad could throw me out without looking horrible in the press…I’m over eighteen, so they couldn’t ship me off to conversion therapy, I’m already paying for my own college…”

“They have no leverage, Alec,” Lydia told him, smiling, “You’re free to choose whether or not you want to come out. If…if you really don’t want to we could try and find another way around Sebastian…”

“No, I think you’re right, it’d be easiest to come out, and I want to, anyway, I’m done letting other people control me.”

“What are you planning? Statement to the press?”

Alec’s mouth twisted in a smirk as a plan formed in his head, “No, that’d be too….mundane. I have something much better in mind. Might as well go big, or go home as they say. But it won’t be put into play for a while.”

“Mm, mysterious, Lightwood, do me a favor,” Lydia said, smirking at him.

“Sure,” he agreed easily.

“Make sure I’m around when it happens.”

Alec looked at her considerably, “If you get that Nationals cut at States, then sure.”

“Ohh, you play dirty, fine, fine you have yourself a deal.”

~~~

When Alec got to Magnus’ loft for lunch Magnus buzzed him in without saying anything.

“Hey, babe, what’s up?” Alec asked, stepping into the apartment and kissing Magnus on the cheek.

Magnus looked at him oddly, “You’ve seen the article, right?”

“Yeah, I did, pretty hard to miss when my dad shoved it in my face last night,” Alec said, walking to the kitchen to dump the Greek takeout on the table.

Magnus trailed after him, still looking at him like he had grown a second head, “And…you’re not upset?” he asked, almost disbelievingly, “Someone took photos of us and leaked it to the press, and you aren’t worried they might dig deeper?”

Alec sighed, and turned to Magnus, wrapping his arms around his waist, “I was,” he admitted, “But then, I thought it through last night, had a nice talk with Lydia, and we found a solution.”

“Oh, and what might this solution be?” Magnus asked, still frowning.

“If it’s alright with you, I was thinking about coming out.”

Magnus blinked, whatever he had thought it might be it apparently hadn’t been that, “Coming out?” he repeated.

“Not for a bit, and only if it’s okay with you,” Alec was quick to reassure. “I have a plan, but only if you’re alright with a loud and dramatic plan…If you want to do something more subtle, like a statement to the press, we can do that. I just thought…Well. With what my dad said last night, and…other people have said, it might be nice to do a big, scandalous reveal.”

Magnus finally smiled, “Are you a closet drama queen? Just how many closets are you hiding in, Alexander?” he teased.

Alec laughed, and pinched Magnus’ side, causing him to jump, “Ha, ha, very funny, just the one closet, and hopefully not for long. Are you okay with it?”

Magnus’ smiled turned soft, “Yes, Alexander, I am. You know how I relish a good, dramatic reveal. The opportunity to participate in one is too good to pass up.” Magnus leaned up and kissed Alec, and with that out of the way he leaned down and opened his mouth to Magnus’ tongue, giving up control in the best possible way.

~~~

 

On Friday Alec and Lydia were chatting before the last second practice before taper started about what they were doing that night, Lydia and John were going to see a play, and Alec and Magnus had been planning on taking Lochte to the beach for a bit of fun. Hodge shouted, ready to start practice

Alec felt the back of his neck prickle and he turned around, Sebastian was lurking over by the wall, looking at Alec and Lydia, Alec frowned at him, opening his mouth to tell him to stop sulking, but Hodge called them over again and he didn’t get the chance.

After the picture had been released Alec had avoided Sebastian, and Sebastian had, for the most part, left him alone. Alec had to admit it made him a little antsy. Alec worried he was planning something, more along the lines of the pictures, but that wouldn’t make any sense because he would lose the only leverage he had…

Alec decided to put it out of his mind, if Sebastian wanted to be creepy and weird that was his problem. All this would be behind Alec soon, anyway.  

 

That night Alec and Magnus were walking along the beach, holding hands with Lochte on a leash.  They were mostly quiet but every occasionally, Magnus or Alec would squeeze the others hand. It was nice, calming, and Alec never wanted it to end.

“This week with you…” Alec started, but he didn’t have the words to finish.

“I know,” was all Magnus said, squeezing his hand.

Alec smiled, “It’s just, I don’t want this to end.”

“Neither do I,” Magnus murmured.

They were quiet as they walked and Alec didn’t know what he had done to deserve this. Sebastian was still a problem, but just…being with Magnus like this made everything he was going through with Sebastian worth it, made coming out, and all it entailed, worth it.

“We have got to stop running into each other like this.”

Alec turned, Sebastian was leaning against one of the boardwalks.

“Oh, it’s you again,” Magnus said, his face twisted with distaste, “What’s it gonna take for you to leave us alone?”

“Mm, pretty sure your boyfriend knows what would make me leave it alone.”

At Magnus’ confused look Alec just shook his head, “I don’t know what he’s talking about,” he whispers to Magnus.

“Well that’s a lie. You lie to your boy toy like that often, Lightwood?” Sebastian drawled.

Alec glared in Sebastian’s direction, “Leave us alone.”

“Hm, but it’s so much more fun to taunt the two fags,” Sebastian chuckled.

“Shut the fuck up, Sebastian,” Alec hissed, he pulled both Lochte and Magnus closer to him, squaring his shoulders.

“Looks like someone’s getting defensive, did I say something wrong?” Sebastian asked, his voice layered with fake innocence.

“Leave us alone,” Magnus snapped, “This is so stupid, neither one of us can do anything for you.”

Sebastian threw his head back and laughed, “Well that is certainly wrong, Alec can and will continue to do many things for me. I’m just here to remind him that the next meet, the most important of them all really, is what this has all been leading up to.” Turning back to Alec, he spits, “Remember what’s at stake, Alec.”

With that Sebastian left, leaving Magnus and Alec standing on the pier. Lochte was sniffing at the ground just a little ways away.

“Alec this is the second time something like this has happened. I let it go last time, but I’m not going to this time, what is going on?” Magnus snapped, once Sebastian is out of earshot.

“Magnus, it’s nothing important, just stupid stuff,” Alec said, turning to continue their walk, but Magnus stayed where he was.

“No, no, you don’t get to brush this off again, Alec. Something is obviously going on, so tell me,” Magnus said, holding his ground and letting go of Alec’s hand.

“It’s not something I can tell you, Magnus,” Alec tried to explain.

“Bullshit! That’s bullshit Alec, and we both know it.”

“No, it’s not, I have it under control—”

But Magnus cut him off, laughing contemptuously, “Oh yes, it sure seemed like you were in total control just now and in the locker room a few weeks ago. Don’t lie to me, Alec, and don’t insult my intelligence. You said that night at dinner that someone had found out about us, was it Sebastian? Did he leak the pictures of us?”

Alec freezes for a split second, “Magnus, come on—”

“No, I won’t let you lie to me again, Alec, tell me the truth, has Sebastian been using our relationship against you this entire time?”

Alec blew out a breath and ran a hand through his hair, “Look, I think I have a way to stop what’s going on, its…taken me awhile to come to terms with it, but I’m ready, and I know you are. It’s just the next step.”

“Alec—”

“No, I’m ready, just…give me until Nationals to figure everything out, after Nationals Sebastian won’t both us anymore, I promise.” Magnus frowned at Alec for a minute, and Alec stepped forward, reaching out a hand to grab Magnus’ again, “Please, Magnus, just trust me on this.”

Magnus finally heaved a breath, “Alright, fine, but know that you don’t have to face this alone, Alexander.”

“I know,” Alec says, smiling gratefully at Magnus, he leans in, a little uncertain, but Magnus doesn’t move, and Alec kisses him gently, “Thank you,” he says after he pulls away.

 

Taper is heaven. Despite his nerves about the upcoming meet, Alec enjoys the extra time he gets to spend with Magnus and his siblings. Since they no longer have two-a-days Alec finds himself hanging out more and more with Magnus in the afternoons, and since his parents are back he spends the evenings after dinner with Jace and Isabelle. He even manages to sneak out a few times and spend nights at Magnus’s place, but not as often as he’d like.

Magnus clears his schedule so he can come to Nationals with Alec, and Alec couldn’t be more excited. Even though both his parents are coming (and bringing the press with them) it was going to be amazing to have his siblings and Magnus there with him.

When his family reached Indianapolis his parents, predictably, split off to go attend a charity lunch, and then some meet and greet with some Indiana senator or something, leaving Alec, Isabelle and Jace to their own devices. Magnus was due to arrive a few hours after them, so the three of them went to get lunch, and then set themselves up in the hotel rooms. Jace was going to take Magnus’ room, and Magnus was going to room with Alec, so Jace just bounced back and forth between Isabelle and Alec’s rooms, trying to distract himself. Alec barricaded himself in his and Magnus’ room for a bit, do a few visualization exercises, and putting his legs up to help drain the lactic acid.

Two hours later there was a knock on the door, and Alec hurried over to answer it. Swinging the door open, Alec smiled widely at the sight of Magnus. Reaching forward he gripped his shirt and pulled him into him, kissing him fiercely as he dragged Magnus into the room.

“Well, that was quite the greeting,” Magnus gasped, as they broke apart, their faces still only centimeters apart.

Alec smiled, a little bashfully, he hadn’t really meant to be that aggressive, but he was happy that Magnus was here, sue him.

“It’s really good to see you,” he admitted.

“It’s barely been twenty-four hours, silly,” Magnus said, laughing.

Alec shrugged, and bent down, kissing Magnus again, backing Magnus up against the bed and pushing him down onto it. This kiss lasted much longer, as Alec rolled off of Magnus and let Magnus straddle his hips.

Kissing Magnus was addictive, had been since the very first time, and Alec…Alec was never going to get enough of it. The smooth, slightly wet, slide of Magnus lips against his, his tongue swiping at his bottom lip, demanding entry, and then dominating his mouth…No, Alec decided, he could kiss Magnus forever. It was electric and soothing all at once, exhilarating, but grounding.

“Knock, knock, I’m coming in,” Alec heard Isabelle sing from the other side of the connecting door.

Reluctantly Alec turned his head away from Magnus, who made a low, disappointed hummed, and tried to follow Alec’s mouth. Alec, somehow managed to resist, and push Magnus off him and onto the bed, standing and straightening out his shirt.

“Fine, come in,” he called, to his sister, and, undoubtedly, Jace behind her.

They came in, and seeing Alec’s slightly disheveled state, and Magnus sprawled unabashedly across the bed, started to laugh. Alec rolled his eyes and waited them out. Finally, when they were done laughing, they said hello to Magnus and started talking about where they wanted to get dinner.

Alec vetoed any place that was too unhealthy, he needed a solid, healthy choice the night before a meet. They finally settled on a locally run place, that grew its own vegetables and fruits.

The night was full of fun, and despite Alec’s nerves he had a blast with his sibling and Magnus at dinner. After dinner, they went back to the hotel room and played a few card games with uplifting sports movies playing in the background. It was a good day, and Alec didn’t want it to end, but at nine he eventually kicked both of his siblings out and started to get ready for bed.

He and Magnus crawled into bed together, and Alec quickly cuddled into Magnus chest, Magnus wrapped and arm around him and dropped a kiss on his head.

“You’re going to swim so well this weekend, Alexander,” he murmured into Alec’s hair, and Alec blushed, tucking his head further into Magnus’ chest.

“I know,” he said.

Magnus let out a surprised giggle, “I’m glad you’re feeling confident.”

Alec looked up at Magnus and smiled, “Why wouldn’t I be confident? My training has been great, I feel well rested and well tapered…Not to mention the man I love has cleared his busy schedule to come endure a boring four-day swim meet, just so he can support me.”

“I suppose you’re right, I love you, too, Alexander,” Magnus said, quietly, the fondness in his voice made Alec’s cheeks redden just a little more.

Alec pushed himself up and balanced on an elbow, and resting his other hand over Magnus’ heart, “Thank you, again, for coming. I know that you had to cancel and miss some things…but I am really, really glad you’re here. It means so much to me.”

Magnus smiled, and gently pulled Alec down, kissing him gently, “You’re welcome. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Anyway, there are a million dive meets that are just as boring as this you can come to, if you want to return the favor.”

“Just give me a time and a place, and I’m there, okay? I want to be there to support you, like you’ve supported me,” Alec said, running a hand through Magnus’ hair, and kissing him on the cheek, lingering for just  a minute before he settled back against Magnus’ chest.

~~~

The meet was…intense, and Alec loved every minute of it. The competitive atmosphere…blew him away each year. It was here that Alec could focus on swimming, and swimming only. Everyone around him, for most of the day, worked as hard as he did, loved the sport as much as he did, and wanted to win as much as he did, and it just added to the intensity of the meet. This was what Alec lived and trained for…or it had been.

He didn’t have to face Sebastian until the last day (how fitting) but he already knew what he was going to do. Sebastian was banking on the fact that Alec was still scared of coming out, but Alec wasn’t. Not anymore, he had Magnus, Magnus who was proud of who he was, he had his siblings who were proud of him, and Alec wanted to be proud of who he was too. He knew that the first step to being proud, was being honest. Sebastian had no hold anymore…not that he knew that, of course.

So, Alec raced, and raced hard. The first two days were just prelims, all Alec focused on was going faced enough to get into the fastest heat of the finals. Still his times were good, fast, and Alec barely felt like he was exerting anything. He glided through the water like a shark, smooth, strong and confident.

The days were filled with swimming, and the evenings were filled with team events, family events, and hanging out with Lydia, Simon, Magnus and his siblings.

On the last day of the meet Alec only had one event, the 400 IM, his best, and favorite event and the one event where he had to face Sebastian. The press was also there, sitting in the back of the stands their camera’s clicking away, but Alec ignored them in favor of focusing first on the race. He would think about the press later.

Alec was seeded first, and Sebastian at fifth, not that seemed to faze Sebastian, who still thought that he could beat the other four people seeded in front of him, and Alec, without causing suspicion.

Just before the race, after Alec had warmed up, he checked his phone, standard ‘good luck’s’ from his siblings, but Alec stared at Magnus’s text the longest.

**From Magnus:** _You’re going to win, Alexander. I love you._

Alec smiled, his heart filling to the brim and he glanced up at the stands, where Magnus was sitting with his sibling’s behind his parents. Magnus was talking to Isabelle and as he watched, Isabelle threw her head back and laughed, Magnus laughing with her. Alec’s smile broadened. Yeah, he didn’t want to hide anymore.

With that final thought Alec made his way to the walk area, and got in position with the other swimmers around him. He smiled tightly at them and put in his headphones, trying to focus. He closed his eyes and ran through his race in his mind from beginning to the end.

Suddenly Alec found himself walking out and lining up behind the blocks. Taking off his parka and his headphones he adjusted his cap, did his regular stretch’s, and tuned everything out of his mind, focusing completely on the water. He imagined how the water would feel against his skin as he glided through it, and how his body would feel at each moment. There was no doubt Alec was ready for this, more than that he was excited.

Snapping his goggles into place he heard the official blow the whistle. Alec ignored Sebastian who he suspected was glaring at him from a few lanes down, and got into place. On the second whistle Alec climbed onto the starting block, placing his left foot behind him, and curling the toes of his right foot over the edge of the block, Alec let his hands dangle. He took two deep, measured breaths, and prepared for the official.

“Take your mark,” a voice sounded, and Alec tensed, gripping the block with his hands.

The horn sounded and Alec was gone. He launched into the water with grace and the moment he hit the water Alec was gone. The water was silky smooth against his skin and his shoulders pulled a little at the strain, just as he had visualized. Alec’s primary focus was on the actual swim part, but his secondary focus was on the people on either side of him. All that mattered now was his stroke, his turns and where those people were in relation to him.

Back and forth back and forth, Alec sailed through the fly, back and breast parts, maintaining a slight lead on those around him. When he hit the freestyle portion he started paying closer attention to the people around him. Unsurprisingly, it would be a tight race, he and the person in lane four next to him kept pulling ahead of him on the odd lengths, but Alec kept gaining that back on the even, if he could continue that trend then he would win. The person in lane six was half a body length behind, and Sebastian all the way over in lane two was just behind him. On the last fifty Alec started to kick it into high gear, his kick, which had been steady all the way through, suddenly increased, and his arms moved like windmills. Alec held his breath, as hard as it was, and focused on his stroke, how hard he was kicking, and how much he wanted to _win_.

When he reached the flags, Alec looked out of the corner of his eye, Sebastian was just there, but Alec knew that he was going to win. when he extended his arm, and hit the touch pad, he knew with certainty that he had just beaten everyone. Looking at the scoreboard for a second all Alec saw was the place he came in. 1st, he smiled, but then froze as he saw the time.

That was an Olympic trial cut.

Alec had just swam fast enough to go to the Olympic trial. His eyes widened, his mouth opening, as much as he had been expecting to win…the thought of an Olympic trial cut hadn’t been on his radar. He turned to look at the crowd, easily spotting his family, Isabelle was jumping up and down, Jace had his hands in the air, and Magnus, Magnus was looking prouder than Alec had ever seen him. He raised his fist, still looking at Magnus, who was looking back, pumping it in the air Magnus’ smile widened and he blew Alec a kiss. Alec caught the kiss, and brought it to his lips, smiling back at Magnus.

It felt like a dream after that, Alec talked to Hodge, expertly avoided Sebastian, warmed down and went to get dressed.

As he was finishing getting dressed a locker banged, and Alec jumped a little, turning he saw Sebastian, a fist against the locker, glaring at Alec.

“You had one job, Lightwood, and you failed, so guess what?” Sebastian sneered, advancing on Alec.

Alec stood tall, and glared right back at Sebastian, “Shut up. You were never going to win, and if you did everyone would have known something was up.”

“You’re forgetting about our deal, and since you haven’t fulfilled your side of the bargain, I don’t have to fulfill mine. You’re going to regret this, Lightwood.”

With that Sebastian turned and left, punching another locker on the way out. Alec rolled his eyes, not in the least worried about Sebastian. He couldn’t do anything until Monday, and by then it would be to late. Shoving his stuff into his bag he slung it over his shoulder and headed out. There were a few cameras waiting for him as he excited the locker room, but he ignored them, all he needed to do was find Magnus. As he headed out into the lounge area he quickly spotted his family and made his way over to them, but Magnus was nowhere in sight.

When he reached his family, Isabelle wrapped him in a hugged, then Jace, then his mother. His father reached out a hand and shook his.

“I’m really proud of you, son,” he said, a little louder than necessary so the press behind him could hear, Alec rolled his eyes, and turned to Isabelle.

“Where’s Magnus?” he asked.

Isabelle smiled, “He just went to the bathroom, he’s on his way back,” she pointed behind him and he turned. Sure enough Magnus was picking his way through the crowd. Alec smiled, Magnus wasn’t expecting anything, he had told Alec that he was happy to pretend he was just a close friend of the family, and Alec had let him think that’s what Alec wanted.

Alec dropped his stuff, and started to make his way to Magnus, wanting to meet him in the middle. Magnus smiled when he spotted Alec walking towards him and Alec returned the smile. When he reached him, Alec engulfed him in his arms, wrapping his arms tightly around his waist and lifting him just a little off the ground, causing Magnus to squeak, before he settled in, hugging Alec back tightly.

“Congratulations, Alexander…I’m so proud of you,” Magnus started, “But I might remind you, we’re supposed to be ‘just friends’ and this isn’t exactly just friend’s territory.”

Alec shrugged a little, but pulled away, a hug wasn’t going to cut it anyway, he had a much more…foolproof plan than that.

“Hey, I love you,” Magnus said, smiling widely at Alec as he pulled away.

“I love you, too, Magnus Bane,” Alec replied, cupping Magnus’ cheeks, “And now I’m going to fulfill my promise to you, if that’s alright?”

Magnus’ eyebrows furrowed a little in surprise, “Here?” he asked.

 Alec smiled widely, “Here,” he confirmed, and leaned down, just enough to make his intentions clear. If Magnus didn’t want to do this than Alec would back away, but Magnus smiled and nodded.

Alec detected the tiniest hint of a blush on Magnus’ cheeks and he smiled, leaning all the way down he captured Magnus’ lips with his, stepping even closer as the click of the cameras, and his parents stunned exclamations, faded from his hearing. All that mattered in that moment was Magnus. He was right where he belonged.

 

**Author's Note:**

> OH MY GOODNESS. I have completed another story! It's amazing and wonderful and I am so excited to have been able to share it with you. Swimming has always had a special place in my heart, and I dedicated so many years of my life to it, so the ability to combine it with two other things that I love (malec and writing) has been a fantastic experience. There will be a few follow ups to this, things that just didn't fit into the timeline, like Alec going to Magnus' dive meet, Alec at the Olympics, and stuff like that.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, kudos and comments mean the world to me! I love to talk to people about this kind of stuff, also I love to talk to people in general, I'm not scary, so message me on tumblr @ lolguess and I will talk your ear off about this season (SO EXCITING). Don't forget to follow Marie on tumblr @ fluffymalec! Much love to ALL OF YOU :) <3
> 
> In the Works:  
> Soulmate AU  
> Spy AU  
> Cooking Challenge AU  
> (So many AU's when will I ever write canon? I mean...the soulmate au sort of...)


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